Episode 31: Smile-Worthy News

In today’s episode, Donielle and Khrystyna need a break from the daily news headlines, so we're scouring the interwebs to uncover uplifting and funny news stories. Join us for a lighthearted conversation filled with moments designed to bring a smile to your face. We hope these stories brighten your day, too!

Show Notes

Transcript

D           Welcome to Coffee in Conversation for ESL Listening. I'm Donielle.

K            And I'm Khrystyna, so grab a cup and join the conversation.

D           Well, hello Khrystyna, how are you?

K            I’m alright, how are you?

D           Well, you know, okay, we're hanging in there. 

K            Yes, yeah, it's about that time.

D           Making it through, making it through.

K            Right, right. And it's kind of that time of year with at least here, I know, in there, it's still warm in your neck of the woods, but it's getting colder in here. And it's been kind of rainy. So, you know, I feel like I have the blues.

D           Yeah, you and me both. But the only good thing is I do have a cruise coming up in a couple of weeks and I sure need it.

K            Yeah, where are you going this time?

D           Eastern Caribbean, so St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Bahamas. 

K            Wonderful. Nice.

D           Yeah. And it's going to be on a relatively new ship. It's the biggest ship in the world at the moment. Yeah.

 K            That’s awesome!

D           Hi doggy.

K            I'm sorry, my dog apparently got jealous of you going on the cruise.

D           It's okay. That was Khrystyna’s doggy saying hello. No problem.

K            Yes. Living with pets, you never know when they start talking.

D           Yeah, yeah. Well, my cats are pretty quiet, but sometimes they'll jump on the desk and put their tail in my face or something, but they're pretty quiet.

K            That's the fun part to see during the recording when there's a tail that always comes by.

D           Yes. Yes, I know. All right. Well, so we have today, you know, we're always up to something, always coming up with new ideas, themes, stuff like that. So we kind of thought it would be nice to do, you know, like an uplifting or happy news kind of thing. You know, sometimes you watch the news and it's not so nice and doesn't make you feel so good. So sometimes it's nice to hear news that's happy and uplifting. Yeah, yeah. And actually, over the years I've kind of, when I would find a cool story in the news or happy or uplifting, something like that, I would save them in a Pinterest board, just to use for an occasion like this, I guess.

K            Yeah that's a good idea you know I never thought of it just saving it on the Pinterest board because I guess my Pinterest board is full of…recipes.

D           Yeah, I’ve got that too.

K            But I just, I never thought that, you know, that's a good idea. If you see some stories or something, kind of save it. I might have to steal that trick from you.

D           Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I do like Pinterest because you can have a million boards, which I do for all different kinds of things, and because you look online, like how much time we spend all day online, who knows, a lot, and you see stuff. It's just, you know, you're bombarded with information and there's just no way you can remember all that stuff. So it's nice to be able to put it away somewhere for when you need it.

K            Yep. Save it. That's a good idea.

D           Yeah. So anyway, I thought we would have a couple of stories. Now, I'm sure you've heard of at least a couple of these stories and I just thought I'd share them with you and the listeners and we'll just have a little chat about them. Like I said, some are just nice feel-good stories and some are funny or they made me laugh for whatever reason.

K            Sounds good.

D           All right. So, and this first one, it's Thanksgiving related. So, I don't know exactly when this is going to come out, but I'm hoping to get it out before Thanksgiving, AKA before my trip. 

K            You’ve got a little pressure there.

D           Yeah, exactly. Sometimes I have to do that. Like I'll say on the recording that I want to do something by a certain date. So I know to tell myself, okay, you said you're gonna do it, so now you've gotta do it. So either that or I'll just edit this out.

K            Hold yourself accountable

D           Okay. So anyway, this is a Thanksgiving story and I'm sure you've heard about this one. This is famous. So I'll just read the first couple of lines of the story. Oh, and by the way, I'll link all these stories too in case you want to read them. All right. In 2016, Jamal Hinton got a text from an unknown number: “Thanksgiving dinner is at my house on November 24th at 3 p.m.” Confused, he asked who the texter was. Sound familiar so far? 

K            No!

D           No? Oh, cool, cool, cool, cool. Okay, all right, well, I'm just going to interject here my thought. Okay, that was 2016, right? Eight years later, I’m not sure this would work because I don't know about you. But I get a lot of those stupid texts, like it's someone pretending to know you. And they'll say, you want to go for dinner? Or are we still on for the movie? You know, some stupid thing like that. And you know it's a scammer. You know, they're just trying to get you to respond.

K            I yeah, I've received some of those too. I feel like the most recent one I got was like, Are you going to be in LA this weekend? I respond, like, I wish.

D           That's the thing, you know, these scammers, man, they're always upping their game, you know, meaning getting better and better all the time. And so just once you think you figured out the scam, they come up with something new. So yeah, not sure this would have worked so well if it happened today, but as it happens, it was 2016, so we’ve got a nice story out of it. Okay. So he gets this text and responds. “Your grandma,” the mystery messenger replied. Hinton, then a teen, asked for a picture. And upon seeing a white woman who was not his grandma, he texted a photo of himself back. “You're not my grandma,” wrote Hinton, who was black. “Can I still get a plate though?” And get a plate means like a plate of food for Thanksgiving.

In what has become known as one of the most wholesome viral moments on social media, the grandmother replied, “Of course you can. That's what grandmas do, feed everyone.” And don't you know, her name is Wanda Dench and her accidental invitation to Thanksgiving dinner eight years ago led to a years-long tradition between her and Hinton, a now classic holiday story online.

K            That is so cool! So how? Okay, how…? Who was she supposed to text originally? Was it just like a mistake?

D           So, no, so she was trying to legit text her grandson, but she didn't realize he'd gotten a new phone, new phone number, something like that. So that was his old phone number. And somehow, you know, this guy ended up with that phone number. And so, yeah. 

K            That is so cool.

D           So he showed up at her house and they had...Thanksgiving dinner, they took pictures, they posted on social media, and of course the story went viral. Because I mean, what a nice story, right?

K            It's just so sweet, you know how that... 

D           It really is.

K            Like just a mistake or a random thing turned into… [the] story says that he kept going back right for years.

D           Yeah, I mean, it goes on and on. Yeah, so of course we're coming up on Thanksgiving again this year. I haven't heard that - usually you hear after Thanksgiving, like, yep, the tradition has continued, you know? So I guess we'll hear how it went this year. But yeah, for eight years, they have had Thanksgiving dinner together and sometimes he brings his girlfriend. I think maybe even she went to his house one time. I don't really know. But for eight years, every Thanksgiving, they have been together. Super cute story. And it actually gets even more interesting because see, they kind of consider themselves family now. I mean, they are really…they’re friends. They're in contact all the time. And they've even, their story has gotten so much attention that they partnered with Airbnb to do a thing where people can pay, I think $16 for a seat at the Thanksgiving table with them. So I think they have like two seats available. And so people can join them to take part in this interesting, cool tradition.

K            That is so interesting. Oh my gosh. What a good story.

D           Yeah. And yeah, and just researching this for today, I learned the latest thing is they started a business together. Yeah.

K            What business? Texting wrong people or?

D           No, no, no, like a legitimate business. It's some kind of a like a health water vitamin. I don't know what it was exactly. Yeah. I mean, I don't know anything about that, but just the idea that this very strange, accidental meeting between two complete strangers can really change people's lives. It's really interesting.

K            I mean, I kind of believe in fate. Do you believe in fate?

D           I don't know. Sometimes.

K            I feel like some things that happened in my life were fate, so it's interesting how like a little coincidence, a little mistake turned into the whole relationship, you know, and that's really cool.

D           Yeah, it really is. It's so cool. But like I said, I can't see that happening now. I mean, just the way those scammer texts come all the time. I'm sure that he would have been like, ugh fake text, and he would have just deleted it that would have been the end of it. You know, so it's really interesting.

K            Yeah. Or he could have tried to make some smart replies and all that. And maybe he could have turned into another cute story. But yeah, I feel like people are more careful nowadays, knowing that there's scammers out there.

D           Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so I thought that was a timely story and I thought that was really cute. So, yeah. Okay. So I think that takes care of that one. So the next one is, I guess it's sort of a feel good story. It's kind of silly, but it made me laugh. And like I said, you know, sometimes if it makes me laugh, that's all that counts, even if nobody else can appreciate it, but here it is. So this story is about some senior citizens in Germany and they live in, they're calling it a nursing home. I've tried to find this story in multiple places, but it's really hard to get any more details. Every story is pretty much the same and it's a little bit vague…light on details, so I don't know if it's a nursing home or just a retirement center or what they got going on over there that this would happen in this way, but I'll read the story. 

K            Okay.

D           Okay. “You're never too old to rock out.” And by rock out, mean, you know, enjoying some, music and with energy and enthusiasm, like going to a concert or something like that, right? Or just playing some music with enthusiasm. So you're never too old to rock out. “Two elderly German men proved this to be true when they snuck out of their nursing home to attend the Wacken Open Air Music Festival, which is considered the biggest heavy metal festival in the world. The nursing home called police to report them missing. And police finally found the two headbangers” - that's a term for people who like heavy metal music - the two headbangers “25 miles from their nursing home at the music festival at about 3 a.m. where they were described as, ‘disoriented and dazed.’” Not sure if that's due to the age or possibly some other festivities at the festival. I don't know. In any case, the story goes on to say that the two men were “reluctant to go home.” But they ultimately did go home, I think, about six o'clock that morning.

K            Oh my gosh.

D           So I just had images of this in my head of these two guys, you know, sitting together in the bingo hall or something. Hey, there's this festival. Man, I'd surely like to go to that. You know, is there any way we could bust out of here and go do that?

K            You know, it's funny how we think about old people, right? Like senior citizens at the nursing home playing bingo. Bingo is not just for old people.

D           You know, I think we had a conversation about this once before when you were making fun of me going to play bingo. Yeah. So, yeah, so I just thought that was hilarious. I just had this image in my mind. So apparently, they decided that these two guys, they snuck out of their nursing home and they walked part way, took public transportation, this 25 miles to go to this festival. And yeah.

K            That's quite far away.

D           Yeah, I just wonder, you know, like, what were the other people in attendance…[thinking] Maybe there were other older people there too, and they didn't stand out at all, but they must have been like, look at these guys rocking out. Okay. Yay. Go you.

K            You know, have you ever watched, sometimes I watch some, like, see videos online of, you know, there's a group dancing and all that, and a lot of it is more like Latino dances and all that, and then you have this old couple that I think if I were their age, I probably would barely walk, but they were just... I mean, you should see the moves. And I always, like, I think it's so cute.

D           It really is.  My instinct here is, what were the police doing? Let these guys go and have some fun. Come on. What are they in jail or, or in an assisted living? mean, it sounds like a little, a little drastic to me.

K            Yeah, I mean like they've lived a life. Let them have fun.

D           Exactly. But then I think to myself, I'm like, okay, I can imagine me, you know, hopefully many years from now in one of those kind of senior citizen homes and like, what would I bust out of there for? Like, what would make me want to bust out and do something? And I can't think of much that would make me want to take public transportation and walk or whatever 25 miles. I mean, it'd have to be something really good.

K            I think if Tina Turner reincarnated herself, I think that would make you bust out of a senior citizens home to go see her no matter how many miles away it is.

D           Yeah, it would have to be something on that kind of level because I don't know, man, that's just far too much work. I'm not trying to do that work now.

K            Although I don't see you sitting still and just not going and doing stuff. 

D           No. No.

K            Like you always have to go somewhere, you always have to do something.

D           I’d probably have to bust out just for the point of busting out. Like, what do mean? You're going to tell me I’ve got to stay here? Uh-uh, I don't think so. Nobody tells me what to do.

K            You can take your bingo and...

D           Exactly. Although I do like games, so I'll stick around for the game and then I'll bust out.

K            Oh gosh, that would be fun. You know what, but in the end, when you think of it was like when you're stuck in a nursing home, I can see how life becomes a little more boring, or, you know, it’s the same you still want to look for some sort of excitement.

D           Yeah, I just, think it's the, the idea of picturing these older gentlemen going to a heavy metal concert. It, I mean, granted, you know, heavy metal kind of started a long time ago. So pretty much these people could be old now who are fans, you know, but you still, think of a real rebellious, youthful kind of...

K            Obviously they were fans of heavy metal because they somehow figured out about this festival. They heard it somewhere, right? 

D           Yeah. Yeah.

K            So... that is too funny. That's a cute story. It's cute.

D           Yeah. I thought so. That made me laugh. Okay. So that was one story involving police. I got another one. This one is just so ridiculous that I don't even know what to say. So I'll just, I'll just read it for you. Okay. before that though, there's a phrase that we're going to hear. And I just want to make sure everyone's clear what it means. A DUI is initials that stands for driving under the influence, meaning you've been drinking or taking drugs or something like that. Just for a little FYI, there's another...more initials there. 

K            Oh my gosh!

D           FYI for your information. Some parts of the country, and I can't really figure out like, it a regional thing? But I definitely know I hear in different places. Sometimes they'll say DWI, which is the same thing, but it stands for driving while intoxicated. So same concept, but anyway. So now that we've covered that, here's the story. “A driver in Colorado tried to avoid a DUI arrest by swapping seats with his dog after being pulled over, police said. The man was stopped by police around 11:30 PM Saturday for allegedly driving 52 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone, the department said in a post on Facebook. The driver attempted to switch places with his dog who was in the passenger seat as the officer approached and watched the entire process.” Can you imagine watching all that go down? Like, my guy, what are you doing?

K            Oh my gosh. So what happens after that? So he watches them switch…

D           Okay. So anyway, he gets out of the passenger seat, right? Because he wasn't driving, right? He gets out of the passenger seat and he starts talking to the police officers and he literally tries to convince them that, yo, I wasn't driving. What? You see, I'm here in the passenger seat. I wasn't driving. So, seeing that that wasn't working out very well, he decides to make a run for it. And they end up catching him about 20 yards away, which I also want to make a comment about the yards. know that's an odd, unit of measure for many people - cause you know how we do strange measurements here, you know, we, we can't do the metric system. We've got all these weird things, right? So a yard is three feet. So yeah. So he was about 20 yards away. They caught him and, of course he was charged with DUI (surprise, surprise), speeding and resisting arrest. And the post ends with this, this Facebook post where they talked about it. “The dog was handed over to a friend of the driver while he was in jail…The dog does not face any charges and was let go with just a warning.”

K            Well, I was surprised the guy didn't get charged also with dog endangerment by allowing his dog to drive a car. You know, funny thing, the story you brought up, I was, the other night, I ran to the grocery store with my family. And as we were coming out of the grocery store, walking to our car, the car that was parked on the other side of the parking, I look over this huge dog sitting in the driver's seat.

D           He wasn’t driving, I hope.

K            I know the dog looked, he kind of turned his face, looked at me and literally it was like, what are you looking at? 

D           Cute.

K            It was so funny. But that happened to me once. I went to... 

D           Excuse me? What?

K            Well, I didn't let my dog drive. I didn't, but I had to leave her in the car for a few minutes because I was picking up my husband. And as I started walking to the house, my horn went off in the car.

D           Oh my goodness.

K            And I look over, and my dog is in the driver's seat over there just going like, you know, with the paws up. Oh my gosh. So apparently my dog knew how to honk at people.

D           Awww. Adorable. Yeah, very cute. Yeah, so I thought that was...just a ridiculous story.

 K            You know, it is ridiculous. And this guy just literally, it's not enough that you're under the influence; I mean, you switch with the dog, but then you run from the police. That's, that's the worst you can do to run from police.

D           You know, that's the thing. I see a lot of these police shows where like they'll show people being arrested or whatever, they'll stop. And how many times they go and run and it's like, really? You really think that's going to work out for you? It happens exactly 0% of the time that that works out. Come on. You're just exerting yourself unnecessarily.

K            Right. And it's like right away they know you did something wrong since you're running away. That's crazy.

D           That was funny. Okay. I think we have time for one more. 

K            Yeah, let's do one more.

D           Yeah. I don't know. I think this is kind of a fun theme. I like this. I kind of like to do this then when we need a little lifting up. Ok. So this one, I think you may have heard before. I'm not sure, but we'll see. Okay, this starts off with the story here: “Walk into any supermarket and you can generally buy a banana for less than $1. But a banana duct taped to a wall, that might sell for more than $1 million at an upcoming auction at Sotheby's in New York.” And Sotheby's is a famous auction house where they have really pricey things. And I also forgot to say about duct tape. Duct tape, for those who don't know, it's this wide kind of really strong adhesive tape. It's kind of silver and shiny and it's got material on the opposite side of it and it's really strong. Not very pretty, so if you need something, that’s just functional, but you don't care how it looks. You would use duct tape for like pipes and things like that. So have you heard of this story?

K            I think so. Yeah.

D           Yeah. Okay. And actually, this is a little bit of an old story, but again, as I went to research this for today, I discovered that it has taken on new life. 

K            Oooh.

D           Yes, because actually this Sotheby's thing, that's new. That auction really is coming up in two days. November 20th.

K            Really? That was timely.

D           Yeah, it was weird. When I saw that the article had been updated, I think it was yesterday. I was like, huh, how was this article updated yesterday? And then I read it and I saw that it's going to auction. I'm like, okay, this is, this is crazy now. Okay. I shall continue. “The yellow banana fixed to the white wall with silver duct tape is a work entitled Comedian by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. It first debuted in 2019 as an edition of three fruits at the Art Basel Miami Beach Fair, where it became a much-discussed sensation.” Was it a prank? A commentary on the state of the art world? Who knows? We don't really know what it was. But in any case, another artist took the banana off the wall and ate it. So problem solved: a backup banana was brought in.

“Selfie-seeking crowds became so thick, Comedian was withdrawn from view, but three editions of it sold for between $120,000 and $150,000.”

K            That’s ridiculous.

D           Okay, so yeah, that was the original story and the update is that it is now an estimated value between 1 million and 1.5 million for Sotheby's auction on November 20th.

K            What in the world.

D           So you may be asking yourself, okay…well, you'd be asking yourself a lot of things like, what the heck is wrong with people?

K            Banana duct tape to the wall is…

D           And it's literally that. If you look it up, you'll see a white wall, banana, duct tape, that's it, a million dollars. And it's not even the original because somebody ate it.

K            Right. And I remember reading about somebody eating the banana. It was an exhibit at one of the museums and one of the guests or visitors ate the banana. I do remember reading that. But a million dollars? Why?

D           I mean, it just doesn't even feel like real life. Like this can't be right. You know, it's like one of those things that, you know, news is… you’ve got to be careful sometimes; you know, there's a lot of false information out there. And when I first heard this, I said, there is no way in the world that this is true. Can't be. So as with many things that sound suspicious, I researched, which is what we should all do when we hear something that sounds strange. I researched and yeah, sure enough, it’s absolutely true, crazy, but here's some more information about this. Of course it's not the same fruit, right? Because even if the person didn't eat that [original] banana, the backup banana, five years later would be pretty disgusting, right? Right. So the banana is just basically replaced regularly, as is the duct tape. And that's the exhibit, so I don't get it. So here's the kicker. The person who buys this piece of work, they don't even get the actual art. They get a certificate of authenticity that grants the owner permission and authority to reproduce the banana and duct tape on their wall as an original artwork by Maurizio Cattelan.

K            This is ridiculous.

D           I don't know where I'm living right now - in some other kind of weird reality. But yes, that is the story of the million-dollar banana and duct tape.

K            And the duct tape on the wall. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm going to go put some banana and duct tape it to my wall and just tell people I got it from, you know, it's the original.

D           You know, I mean, it just really, you know, I kind of make fun sometimes of like these influencers. Sometimes they get, they do just weird things on YouTube, not even influencers, just people who do strange things and it goes viral and they end up making millions of dollars because so many people are viewing the video. And I think that's crazy. But this one… this - here's a nice expression for you - This one takes the cake. It means this is the worst. This is unbelievable.

K            Yes. Yeah. It's just crazy. You know, I wonder if I could get even more creative and like tape a mango to the wall or something or a button, you know, or an apple.

D           I know. think there's, you know, the name of it is Comedian. So that has the idea of, know, funny humor and bananas are kind of inherently funny. There's a lot of things funny about them. You know, there's the old joke where, you know, those slapstick comedians would drop a banana peel and someone would slip and fall, but they're just, they're just kind of funny. So I guess that's why the banana was chosen, but my gosh.

K            I feel like sometimes people just make such a big hype, there's another word, around things that they become valuable and maybe they actually are not, you know.

D           Yeah. Yeah, that one was crazy. I don't know. I can't even make sense out of that one, but it was hilarious and it made me laugh. So, anyway, I guess it served its purpose. Comedian made me laugh. I don't know that it was a million dollar laugh, but okay.

K            Nah, was more like 20,000.

D           Maybe five cents, I don't know. The cost of the banana and the duct tape. Okay. Well, anyway, I thought this was kind of fun. I don't know. I’d love to hear from y'all what you think about our topic today. And, oh yes, check out show notes. I've got the links for the articles that we discussed today and talking about the words and phrases and stuff like that. Transcript, all that other good stuff. So definitely check that out. There is a join the conversation link. So if you want to shout out to us and give us your thoughts, your ideas for a topic, whatever you like, we'd love to hear from you. But in the meantime, here's to good coffee, good vibes and great conversations. Cheers.

K            Cheers.