The Numbers

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We always talk about what we're reading, we invite listeners to read short stories along with us, including my favorite, Miss Braille by Catherine Mansfield. At the end of each episode we offer three recommendations of things we've been enjoying lately. You can check it out for yourself at the end of this episode. And then if you want, you can sign up for a free seven day trial. Joining Criminal Plus also means you can listen to everything we make with no ads, and you'll be supporting our work. Your direct support means more than you know. Learn more at patreon.com/criminal. Now here's the show. The sound of the phone ringing is embedded in my sort of memory of life growing up. The phone was always ringing and it wasn't just one phone. At one point we had three lines, and my mom tried to keep them separate, so to speak, one was a business line, one was a personal line, one was the children's phone line. But of course, if people couldn't get through, these are the days before call waiting. If people couldn't get through and they were anxious, some of them had access to a personal number and they'd start calling that one. So yeah, ringing phones. This is Brigette Davis, her mother, Fanny Davis, was born in Nashville in 1928. Fanny's grandfather had been born into slavery there, and her father owned a successful plastering business in the early part of the 20th century, and that enabled him to buy property. And so he was both a businessman and a property owner, and so my mom witnessed his entrepreneurial spirit and was highly, highly influenced by him. She really admired her, her father's life. Fanny grew up in Nashville and married Brigette's father when she was 18. But like many African-Americans, she decided to migrate north with her family in the mid-50s so that they could have better opportunities and more liberties. And so they chose Michigan, and ultimately Detroit. And they hadn't prepared themselves for what was awaiting. And the racism in Michigan was so virulent and distinctive from the Southern sort of discrimination they'd known about, that it took them off guard. They weren't prepared for that. And the way it manifested was in all the key ways. They couldn't find decent housing. They were charged, exorbitant rent. My father was unable to find steady work. And so these things really plunged them into poverty. Because she very early realized she'd have to step in and figure out something. Fanny Davis found a way to take care of her family. She started small, but built a robust and lucrative operation, a business that a lot of people knew about, but no one talked about, which happened to be illegal. It was called The Numbers. I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal. What were the numbers? The numbers. The numbers are an underground lottery business or operation that has been in place since the early 20s. It moved across the country and it was designed by, created by a black man in Harlem and really was a black business. It thrived. It was a true economy, actually. By 1970, police estimated that one in every 15 people in Detroit played the numbers daily and that it was generating $94 million a year. Here's how you play. You get to choose a three-digit number and if that number is the winning number, you actually win a 500 to one payout. If you bet a dollar on that three-digit number and it came out, as we call it, then you actually would get $500. My mom knew about the numbers, most black Americans knew or know about the numbers. She played a bit herself. She played a few coins on numbers but she noticed in her community where she was living in Detroit that people were playing those numbers a lot and she thought they could actually give me their bets. She was very small-scale at first what she called a penny business and eventually worked as a bookie for a large banker. There were hundreds of bookies. You were a bookie if you take other people's numbers. Do you just sit at your kitchen table and you have five customers who call you and turn in their numbers to you? You're a bookie. The thing that distinguished her, the thing she did that almost no other women in Detroit did was she was a banker. So that meant she paid out hits. So she wasn't going to the bank to collect on. The bank was her. Yes, ultimately. Before she could graduate from bookie to banker, Fannie needed a pool of money to pay out winning hits. So she asked her brother for help. And so she entered his home as he tells me she didn't even take her coat off and she stood there and told him, "John, I want to bank the numbers." And he said, "Are you sure about that?" She says, "Yes, I've thought about it and she explained how she would do it." And he said, "Okay, it made sense to him." She said, "The only thing is, I need you to loan me $100. Can you do that?" And he said, "Yes, Fannie, I can do that." Being a banker wasn't something that women did often. What do you think gave your mother the confidence to do this? I don't think it ever occurred to her that she couldn't. I don't think it ever occurred to her that I'm a woman, so I can't do this. She thought, "I have a head for numbers. I am clear about my goals. I have all the skillsets in place. I can command respect, so I'm not worried about that." So why not? There was something about her. Not everyone could have done it. She was really perfect for this role, and she had the qualities that made it possible to thrive at it. And that has everything to do with her, just who she was. Tell me about your mother's schedule, how the day would go, once the business picked up. What was the day's schedule? My mom was uptaking numbers in the morning early. Some of her customers wanted to turn their numbers in before they went to work. And so she had to accommodate them. I remember someone in particular, a customer who would love to go fishing on Saturday morning, so she'd like to turn their numbers in at 6am. A lot of people like to call in their numbers during lunchtime. You know, there were these busier periods and then these sort of slow down periods and then busy again. And it got a lot more hectic as the afternoon wore on because there was a cutoff time. So that was often the busiest time of the day, that time right before the evening. So that was really how her day went, a lot of taking people's bets. And also, there were people who liked to come to the house and give their numbers directly to her. So there was that piece of it. There were people who liked to come in weekly and pay her directly, you know, so there was this mix of collecting the money and then receiving it from people who showed up at the house. And how were the winning numbers chosen, decided? Each city came up with its own way to determine a winning number and many of them landed on this idea that they would get the number from racing forms, daily racing forms from various racetracks across the country because those numbers also changed all the time. And there was a calculation that was done to determine each digit of these winning three did you winning numbers. The calculation was made using an elaborate formula based on horse race winnings from race tracks. Those results wouldn't be tabulated until after Fanny's bets were closed, so there was no way to cheat. So how would people find out if they'd won? I always say it's a little bit like a game of telephone, but it has to be accurate. So the numbers bosses would sign off on these winning numbers based on these calculations. And so the word would go out, okay, it's official. These are the three winning digits for today. And the numbers bosses employees would then make the calls to various bankers who would inform various bookies, and they would inform their customers. And so the word would go out on the street. It would go out in a telephone call. You know, it really was word of mouth. And it was really an incredible system when you think about it, but that's how it was done. Rajat remembers that when the winning numbers would come in each night, things could get stressful in the house. If someone won big, her mother would have to pay out. That was a big part of sort of the business. Luckily, it wasn't daily. She didn't get hit daily. But there were times when she got really people one day. And so that was a whole process, you know, gathering that money to pay off, which was her policy to pay off the next day by noon. So that was also a big part of the business. We'll be right back to listen without ads. Join Criminal Plus. Support for Criminal comes from NetSuite. 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So it might be time to find some cozy cold weather staples. Quince has plenty. Quince specializes in effortless high-quality essentials like ultra-soft organic cotton and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're beautifully tailored, built to last, and transitioned seamlessly from chilly morning walks to a nice dinner out. Quince also has premium stretch denim, starting at just $50, with the kind of perfect fit structure and weight you'd expect from a luxury designer brand. I think their organic cotton cable cardigan will be perfect for fall. It looks warm and comfortable and is easy to layer with other items as the temperature starts to change. Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to Quince.com/Criminal. Get free shipping on your order in 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/Criminal. Do you remember being a little kid and helping out with the business? What were some of the tasks that you were given? I wanted something that I could do to contribute and so she decided that my job would be to call all the customers and give them that day's numbers. She paid me $20 a week. That seems like an important job. It was great and guess what? The customers loved hearing from me because I was this child calling. Hi, this is Fanny's daughter and I'm just letting you know today's number is 697 and they say, "Oh, thank you, baby." Do you remember customers coming over? Oh, I vividly remember customers coming over all the time. All the time. One of my favorites of her customers was a woman who had been a lady of the evening in her youth and she had an extraordinary wardrobe of clothes from that life and she liked to talk to me about fashion and she knew fashion, she knew real fashion, she knew designers, etc. So I really learned all these things from my mom's customers. They went above and beyond just seeing them engage in transactions. Do you ever remember anyone sitting around the house and kind of talking with your mother and saying, "Well, I think maybe 532 this week and what do you think about that or 478 or back and forth about the number that they wanted to play?" Yes, so much of the reason that people like to come over and turn their numbers in directly is they wanted the social piece of it. You know, they wanted to be in conversation about the numbers. It really generated a kind of sort of like communal experience. So customers are like, "What are you feeling as a good number?" And I was thinking about this and, "Oh, I dreamed." I actually dreamed about fish. And so then a customer could say to my mother, "Fanny, what does fish play for?" And what does that mean? That means that the customer is asking, "What does the dreambook say? The three-digit equivalent is for fish." What does the dreambook ask? What are dreambooks? What is the dreambook? The dreambook was a publication, a little book that really was more like the Bible for numbers players. And it essentially was encyclopedic. It really listed every person, place, or thing you could imagine, as well as experience that someone could dream about. And I mean just about anything. And so, again, as I was saying, these experiences or places or persons or things all had three-digit sort of numbers assigned to them. And so that's how you figured out, again, what does fish play for? Well, the dreambook says it plays for 497. I think because I dreamed it, I'm going to play that. And there were many different versions of dreambooks, dreambooks, date back, way back, into the 19th century. And so the more popular ones in my household were two in particular. The Red Devil Dreambook and the Three Wisement Dreambook. And so a customer might have a preference for one over the other and say, "Well, Fanny, I don't know about that. I don't really know about what the Three Wisement says. Tell me what the Red Devil says it plays for." And then the customer might say, "Okay, I'm feeling lucky. I'm going to put that number in today." Did your mother also believe in the dreambooks and use that type of mystical numerology in her own life and around your house? My mom believed in luck and she believed in conjuring luck. And so she had these rituals that she followed. There, I might add, there was a proliferation of sort of paraphernalia that you could purchase around the numbers business. There were shops designed to sell all these things to you. And one of them was candles, lucky candles. The kind that can burn for a week, a nice tall ones. And so my mom often had these candles burning in the household in strategic places. The idea was that once the candle burned down, there was actually a three-digit number at the bottom. And there were lucky oils and there was incense that did the same thing. Once it burned down, there would be a three-digit number at the bottom. And that's maybe a number to play. So yes, in many ways as a child I found our home so magical. And I felt that she was at the center of that magic, that she herself was magical. Fanny wasn't just running the numbers. She played them and she was lucky. In one especially large hit, she won enough money to put a down payment on a house. She wouldn't tell anyone how much she'd actually won. Bridgette says that owning the house meant a lot. Her mother's policy was feel free, feel welcome, be happy. And she wanted her children to feel proud. I went to school one day and my teacher said to me, You sure do have a lot of pairs of shoes. And it was true. I did. I didn't know how to answer her. I was concerned because the week before she had asked me what does your father do. And I told her he doesn't work. My father actually was disabled. So she naturally asked, "Well, what does your mother do?" And I said, "This time I was lying." I said, "I don't know." Because I knew she was in the numbers, but I knew I wasn't supposed to tell anyone that. So I suspect looking back that she was already looking at me and thinking, "What? This little girl is really dressing well. This little black girl." And I think that prompted the questions. But I was naive. I didn't know that. I just knew that on this day she was telling me I had a lot of pairs of shoes. And I agreed. And then she really stunned me by saying, "Name every pair of shoes you have. Do not sit down until you do that. Go ahead." And I was so nervous. I thought it was a test, and I didn't want to fail it. And I worked really hard, nervously, and named 10 pairs of shoes. I was being so diligent. And she said to me, "That 10 pairs of shoes, that's an awful lot." Well, again, I didn't know how to answer her. I sat down. The surprising thing for me was the next day she called me to her desk again. And this time she said, "You did not tell me that you had a white pair, too." And I had forgotten to tell her about the white pair I was wearing that day. And I apologized. I didn't know what else to do. She dismissed me with a flip of her hand. But at that point I thought, "Oh boy, I'm in trouble. And I need to tell my mom because I've clearly done something wrong." And I told my mother that evening, and I can't even begin to describe the look on her face. I still remember it. She was furious. I thought she was angry at me. But she said, "That is none of her damn business. Who does she think she is?" She was so angry. And she told me, "Get in the car now." I, of course, thought we were going back to the school to confront my teacher, Ms. Miller, and I was really frightened. I did not want to do that. But that's not where we were going at all. And my mom took me to Saxford Avenue. And she took me to the Children's Shoot Department. She pointed to a gorgeous pair of yellow patent leather shoes. And she said, "Those are pretty." She pulled out a $100 bill and paid for those shoes. And then told me, "Listen, you're going to wear these shoes to school tomorrow. And you're going to tell your teacher that you actually have 12 pairs of shoes. You hear me?" And I did. And Ms. Miller never spoke to me again. Was it just accepted knowledge in your house that you didn't talk about your mother's business? We never talked about not talking about it. It was just understood. There were no conversations around it. It was clear. It was clear. You don't talk about what happens inside of this household. And of course, we understood the implication that we could get busted by the authorities. And that's not good. Someone could hear about it and try to rob us. Not good. So there was no need to work in sort of struggle with keeping the secret. It was a natural and easy to keep that secret. And we all did. When did it become clear to you that your mother's business had become very successful? I don't think I processed it that way for years. We lived well from my memory. It was my normal. And so I didn't think about my mom. Well, she's successful. I thought we're doing well with this. That's how I looked at it. And so that's how I always viewed it until I was an adult and began to see the totally it was taking. We'll be right back. Support for criminal comes from Mint Mobile. If you're looking for ways to save money this summer, then you can start by lowering some of your expensive monthly bills. Make your phone bill. Mint Mobile can help. Right now, all of Mint's plans are only $15 per month. All of their plans come with high speed 5G data and unlimited talk and text. We have a friend who switched Mint Mobile and says he's saving money every month since he made the change. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to MintMobile.com/Febi. That's MintMobile.com/Febi. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at MintMobile.com/Febi. That's it. That's it. 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With Shopify, you'll be on the same platform that powers some of the biggest names in the game, like Mattel and Jim Shark. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at Shopify.com/criminal. That's Shopify.com/criminal for your free trial. In 1962, there was a massive raid at the Gotham Hotel, the hub of the African-American numbers operation in Detroit. This conducted a room-by-room search and confiscated numbers tapes, adding machines, hundreds of boxes of bed slips, and 30 saves. And then, one night in 1970, 200 FBI agents conducted raids all over the city of Detroit, making arrests in 58 different locations. J. Edgar Hoover called it the largest gambling raid in history, Bridgett, was an elementary school. My mom never made it known that that was going on, and that's why I always call her an incredible domestic magician, the sleight of hand she had to use, to make sure none of us were constantly stressed out by the possibility of these sort of bus happening. Now she did do some practical things. She had a big safe that she kept, a combination safe that she kept in her closet. That's where she kept the money, that's where she kept the day's business. We had an incinerator in our basement, and she burned her tickets and proof of the business on a weekly basis. She was in no way reckless. That was not my mom. Do you have any complicated feelings about the fact that it was a crime, what your mother was doing? I have no complicated feelings around that, because for me it wasn't a crime. This is a country that put a lot of laws in place to keep black people down. Let's be clear and blunt about it. It was very clear to me intuitively and now literally that there's a difference between a legitimate business and a criminal one. It's criminal because laws were put in place to say it shouldn't happen. But it was legitimate and that was proven because the state decided all these states, almost every state in this country now has a lottery. Obviously it was a legitimate business. It just happened to be illegal. Well there are all kinds of laws that were put in place in this country that were not legitimate. They were not fair, but they were laws so technically you'd be breaking the law if you didn't do what you were supposed to. That to me is never a complicated question. What is the history of the lottery? It was legal and then illegal and then legal again. It turns out that the 13 colonies had lotteries and they used those lotteries because they were cash poor and they needed them for capital improvements. Like a precursor to the stock market in fact, they proliferated these lotteries, legal. And in fact slaves could play these lotteries too and win and one in particular did just that. A famous slave, Denmark Vessie, who went on to lead a slave revolt years later. But at the time, 1799 he bought his freedom from the proceeds of a lottery he won, $1,500. So, that was incredible and extraordinary. However, that and other incidents like that really prompted the new government and the state governments to essentially ban lotteries and make them illegal. It was too egalitarian, and so the answer was to just outlaw it. And that's what they did for like 100 years until the mid 60s. They decided that state officials decided that there was too much money being made in this underground lottery business, this numbers business that black folks were running and profiting from and that they wanted that money, they wanted in. What was the role of the numbers in the black community? I mean, it hard to overestimate how important the numbers were in the black community. But the big thing, besides the social piece, which is huge also, it was a communal social experience and that was important. But also, those big numbers were race men and they believed that they should take their wonderful large s and reinvest in the community. That was just what they did. And that was vital because discrimination and segregation had made it so that black folks had a lot of services that were not available to them. And numbers men stepped in to provide them something as important as providing a home loan for, you know, a black person or family that cannot get a traditional mortgage, numbers men would provide the loan money for that. Also, numbers men started insurance companies. They started newspapers, they bought and owned and ran hotels where black folks could stay. You could not, as a black American, go to a Detroit hotel downtown and stay in it in much of the 20th century in this country. You couldn't do it. And so numbers men, one in particular, he basically ran a beautiful hotel in Detroit that was four African Americans. It was incredible. In 1972, the state of Michigan legalized the state lottery. The Michigan lottery was drawn every week rather than every day, like the numbers, so people played both. In 1977, a new game was introduced, the daily. It happened every day, you could choose your numbers, you could get paid the next day and the payout was 500 to 1, the same as Fannies. She kept some of her loyal customers for a while, but then they started to peel off, and here's why. That state run lottery did have one distinct advantage. It had a lot of disadvantages that worked for a while for my mom. You didn't have to pay taxes if you played with Fanny. You could play on credit and pay once a week with Fanny. So there were these things that were an advantage, but the big disadvantage ultimately made it impossible for her to compete. And that is that the state lottery was able to broadcast its winning numbers on the local TV show every evening, local TV stations, and people absolutely love to learn the winning numbers every night, publicly, at the same time. And so that's when my mother really started to try to figure out what can I do. And she came up with something. She did. She decided, hmm, if you can't beat them, join them. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take those winning numbers that the lottery provides and make them the winning numbers for my informal lottery business. And it worked. It worked. The state lottery kept changing, and Fanny Davis kept changing her business right with it. It was getting tougher to compete. She started holding poker games to help make up for lost revenue. But when Michigan introduced the Lotto, the prizes were bigger than she could keep up with. Fanny Davis ran her numbers business for 30 years. She died in 1992. Bridgette says she can still picture her mother seated at their dining room table, working. Of course, everyone thinks that her mother's beautiful, but mine really was. And I loved watching her work, you know, she was just there, and she was doing her thing. And I was just going around, you know, getting ready for school or having my sugar frosted flakes in the morning and just comforted by her presence and the sight of her doing her business. It was like all's well in the world. The money Fanny earned put Bridgette through college. It allowed her to buy a home of her own in Brooklyn. She says she plays the numbers now in the form of the legal lottery, almost every day. She usually plays 313, the area code for Detroit. But sometimes she plays 788, her mother's favorite. Can you do an impression of what it was like when your mother on the phone, when she would pick up the phone to take a number, what would you say, what was the interaction like? Okay, I'll take that one more, 684 for 50 cents, and 978 for 50 cents for 50 cents for $1, 10 for $1, okay, I got it. Alright, Miss Queenie, well listen, do you have any more numbers? No? Alright, okay, I'll take that one more. Okay, 4 for 50 cents, uh-huh, and 972, box for 20, got it. Alright, Miss Queenie, you have a good day. Criminal is created by Lauren Spore, and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers, our Susanna Robertson, Jackie Cigico, Lily Clark, Lena Silicin, and Megan Canaine. This episode was originally mixed by Rob Byers. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Semonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at ThisIsCriminal.com, where you can also find information about the book that Brigette Davis has written about her mother. It's called The World According to Fanny Davis. My mother's life in the Detroit numbers. You can sign up for our newsletter at ThisIsCriminal.com/newsletter. We hope you'll join our membership program, Criminal Plus, now on Patreon. Don't forget to keep listening at the end of this episode to your next served of our latest episode of Criminal Plus. If you want to hear even more, sign up for a free seven day trial at patreon.com/criminal. It's the very best way to support our work. We're on Facebook at ThisIsCriminal, an Instagram and TikTok, a Criminal_podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. This is something that I can see myself doing so quickly. So I'm not going to call it a crime. Did you hear about the retiring pilot? No. A couple weeks ago, there was a pilot, a Iceland air pilot who was retiring. It was his final flight. And he was flying from Frankfurt back to Reykjavik. And on that route, he happened to pass over his hometown in southern Iceland. And he decided for his final flight that he would take a full passenger jet on a very low flyover of his hometown. With passengers? With passengers? No. And the town thought that they were under attack. Because there's a passenger jet flying incredibly low over this little town. He did it. He landed the plane. It didn't go over so well. Oh my gosh. But I think if there's a way to go out, I absolutely what a wonderful thing. Can you imagine just looking out your window and seeing a low, a huge plane low? You would think it was the apocalypse. You would think it was falling out of the sky. video footage of the flight. shared by the Iceland monitor, the aircraft can be seen flying directly over houses and other buildings with the outlet noting the aircraft appeared to be at an altitude of 328 feet. - No. (laughing) Isn't that so, is that the way? And then you just, there's a little detour to say goodbye. I think it's wonderful. I mean, that was your birthday dream, right? It was to like tip your wing. - Yeah, my dream's always been, I still don't have my pilot's license, I gotta do it. My dream has always been to fly over our house and have Sarah on the front lawn and dip my wings to her as I fly past. - I've gotta make that happen. - Did you hear about the Adjunct Professor at College of Charleston? - No. - He was busted by the police for possession of almost $3,000 of petrified wood samples. - What is it about petrified wood? - And it was, they found it in a box that said, quote, "Definitely not stolen mineral samples." - People, am I missing it about petrified wood? - Do you think that he heard our episode? - Triassic park. I don't, I mean-- - He was charged with breach of trust and grand larceny. He also had some other things he wasn't supposed to have like a rare shark skeleton or no, a jawbone, fish jaw fossil, 3D printed whale skull. The jaw was worth more than $4,000 and is one of the only known species in existence. - Yeah, what do you do with petrified wood? - Well, as I recall, when we did our live show at the bellhouse a long time ago, when we did this petrified wood story, we had some pieces of petrified wood which we gave to some members of the audience. - Yes, it's my father brought. - I mean, that's a real interactive. Talk about the good old days, right? - We were handing out favors at the live show. - Trees, I know. - I remember we discussed whether, I think it was on Halloween and we discussed, I suggested we get a pumpkin on the corner of the stage and you said, "Absolutely not." Phoebe hates pumpkin Halloween aesthetics. What have you been enjoying lately? - Something I've been enjoying lately and I don't know if I have talked about this before, but there is a show. I recently subscribed to Brit Box. - Wow, I know. - But I did this really great thing. We were looking for, like, a police procedural. I can never, Sarah and I can never find a show to watch together and we can never finish a show together. So we were trying. So I looked up "Best British Police Procedureals" and there was a show called "Line of Duty" that came up, which is a very popular in Britain. And so you get it on Brit Box. That's not why we got Brit Box. We got Brit Box because there's a show called "Gardner's World" which is a really wonderful calm show. Monty Dawn, I think I've talked about it. And he just takes you through the garden, he tells you how to garden it's been on for 25 years. It's one of the most popular shows in Britain. We watched a lot with my mother, Sarah watched a lot with my mother and it's kind of garden spring season and she said, "I would love to watch an episode of "Gardner's World" and I said, "We could get Brit Box." And the way that I sometimes deserve to happen to when you are gonna subscribe to something new that the 1099 feels like this is the most reckless, like are you sure we're gonna do this? That's what happened, but we did it. And then I said, "Well, let's get our money's worth "found line of duty. "I canceled it. "Here's another pro tip." I said, "We only did one month. "I'm gonna cancel the next day." Canceled, tried to cancel the next day. They offered me three months at 99 cents. - Wow. - I took it. But so in this Brit Box, I was looking around and there's another show that I've seen a few times. It's called Escape to the Country. Do you know about this show? Why are you laughing? - No, I don't know about this one. - What's so funny about this one? - Nothing, please. It's really wonderful. It's my pace. People, usually living in London or other parts, go and look for a country house. So they're gonna leave their house and they're gonna escape to the country. And they're shown, "Why are you laughing, Lauren?" Please. - If I join some accent or something? - No, not at all, please. - So they're shown these three country houses in parts, different parts of England. And you learn about the county that they're moving to. And you learn about the wonderful things that are there in the history. And then you go on these houses. You see these houses. And it is the most relaxing show. That's my number. I'm gonna just say one more time off because I don't want to see your laughing anymore. - No, that sounds great. I would love to have that brick box log in, please. I'll swap you a Hulu log in. - I already have it. - Well, I have been watching something on Criterion channel, which is one that I pay for. And they have a new category that you might enjoy called corporate thrillers. We're talking primal fear, devil's advocate, the firm. That's Michael Clayton, the international, and then the one I watched, which I had never seen before, was Wall Street with Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas, James Spader, Martin Sheen, who really has a really heart-wrenching performance. And I had never seen this movie. And it felt like the high 80s aesthetic was a lot of fun. And then the movie ends on a very peculiar note. And I just feel like the movie would never be made the way. It was all of our stone movies. It would never be made this way today. But that was a really fun time capsule on Criterion, which I'm paying who knows how much I'm on the floor. - I know, I know. So that's the thing I've been enjoying lately. And have I recommended this before Johnny Pops? - Yes, but I'd like to hear about it again, 'cause whenever I see them in the store, I think about this recommendation. - So Allison, if you're listening, this is another way I hear Phoebe's a voice in my head. I'm a Harris Teeter. I see Johnny Pops. I think about her talking about Johnny Pops. - Well, should I not recommend it? - No, you should. It's a good recommendation. - It's a good recommendation. So we get the Johnny Pops that are seven different colors. Oh, it's different flavors. And the bottom two are pretty bad. It's a grape and a blue, don't they? But it's such a great thing. Yesterday, I'm running a race this weekend. And it's gonna be very hot here, like 95, pretty wild. And it's very hilly. And so I was training and I was trying to run on hills. Because I actually have been using your treadmill, Lauren, often. - It's good that someone is using it. - I really have been, I ran 10 miles on your treadmill the other day. And you thought that that was an insane person. - That's a good tip. - I mean, talk about a depression move. Just go outside. - I needed it to be more controlled. Anyway, but there's very long run. It was very hilly and it was very hot. And I came home and I had a Johnny Pops. And it was the best treat you could ever imagine. So I've done it before, but I'm saying again, Johnny Pops. - Have you ever heard of this ice cream sandwich called Fat Boy? - Yeah, I like it. - Whenever, it's just like a very classic ice cream sandwich with the funniest name and the cutest box. Fat Boy. Second thing I've been enjoying lately is I already foreshadowed it. But my very favorite show in the whole world stars Lisa Kudrow on HBO. The first season was in 2005. Second season, 2014. And now the third season is with us right now. 2026, Lisa Kudrow in the comeback. - Yeah, I mean, I've been watching it. - It is. - It's pretty, it's pretty. - It's so funny. - It's so funny. - Yeah, it's very, very, very funny. I'm just watching the first season. - I would say it's more dry and more understated and more subtle than Kerberan's enthusiasm or than anything in that genre. It is so subtle. - I have really been enjoying it. - And she is just a really undervalued comedic actress. And it's wonderful to see her after all these years. - The third thing I've been enjoying lately, it's also, it's a third thing, I was just thinking, should I try to talk about the academic journals that I've been reading or the obscure French films on criterion, but I'm not going to. I'm gonna talk to you about ice water with a splash of fruit juice. Okay, just talking about not Seltzer. - Well, I'm gonna tell you, well, you're blowing it for me lately, Lauren, with this PFAS conversation. But last night, I have one Seltzer every morning and I have one Seltzer every night after dinner. Always, two Seltzers today, two cans a day. And last night, I opened the refrigerator and there was no Seltzer. Forgive me. There was one Seltzer, which meant that if I had it last night, I wouldn't have any Seltzer this morning. And I made the decision, I took it, I had it last night, knowing that this was gonna cause a problem. And I woke up this morning and I thought, Phoebe, what the, I mean, it was really like the shakes, you know, like what are you gonna do? And I put some ice in a mason jar, I'm doing it right now. This is my second, put some ice in a little mason jar with water and a tiny splash of real grapefruit juice. Fantastic. I had a long interview this morning. I had like an hour and 45 minute long interview and I had this little treat and I just was delighted by it. And I think this could be the way that I might cut down on my Seltzer. What if you made fruit juice ice cubes? Great idea. That would be such a treat. And I would look good. That's a great idea. That is a great idea. Yeah, it is a great idea. And you could even put little rosemary or basil in with little rospedals. Rosemary and grapefruit would be good together once. Yeah. would be good. So that's my number three. And yeah, my number three, this is a really serious recommendation. Trashcan buckles. Have you ever seen this? If you live in a suburban area, as we do, what'd you say? You're talking about this. I didn't know what you were talking about. I didn't follow up the pleasure. It costs $12 for two of them. And the pleasure that I've gotten from that, that $12 because for years, I've been trying to weigh down the lid of my trashcan with heavy, whatever heavy objects are available. But then you, you go out to take your trash out and you have to put the trash down and move the heavy thing and open it because we have so many raccoons and who knows who, like animals get into the trash. So you can buy these little nylon buckles to keep your trashcan closed. The brand I got is called Pato P-A-H-T-T-O. That's a good idea. Oh, it says bearproof trash bin lid lock. I have to say I can imagine a bear could get in there still, but a little tiny raccoon cannot. That's my number three. It's given me enormous pleasure. I've been deeply enjoying it. Well, Warren, we have gone around the bin today. Yes. Please send your idea for the next criminal plus reading club. Yes, you can always, you can send it, you can Patreon or you, you know, if you're not on Patreon, you can write to us at [email protected], 833-827850. Let us know with your complaints or suggestions or we'll take anything. Warren, what's next? You and I have a meeting in 17 minutes, just enough time for me to pop downstairs and get a Johnny Pop. Bye. Bye, bye.