Welcome to another recrap of 90 Day Fiancé, where we learn all the things money can buy, like denial, a resort vacation for one, unpaid slave labor, and nonrefundable mid-plague airfare.
COVID-19 has finally decided to stop inconveniencing Stephanie, so she’s back to enjoying her first high school relationship and pondering which hula hoop to pack. It might take an extra suitcase, since Steph’s been shopping for Ryan since before they met.
“I have too much money, and instead of giving to charities, I buy affection,” she explains. “Affection has been around WAY longer than Bitcoin, you know. This is a little watch for the big watches to wear. It cost $3500. And this is a tiny pair of pants for gnomes that’s been stitched by other gnomes that live inside of watches. They cost Blair dollars, and if you can’t figure out what that is, you can’t afford gnome pants.”
Stephanie’s also bringing her mother’s ring for the fabled proposal she’s orchestrated in advance, and based upon their last telephone doom spiral, she knows this is exactly as smart as cramming said treasure into a checked suitcase.
“Time out: Who the fuck is taking care of me, now that the food lady is gone?” The cat has questions. “I’m fucking old. There are medications in tiny bottles. What am I, the Uncle Joon of this narrative? Am I going to get my paw struck in a drain for six fucking hours while the woman in my life dates the wrong person? This is bullshit.”
Stephanie also suffers from an acute case of Zied Envy Disorder, and she’s so inflamed that she’s forced to wear a face mask with a photo of her posing with her favorite child. This doubles as a way to skip relationship and go right into Proud Grandparent mode.
“I’m listening to that YEET Skert song on The TikTok so Ryan and I have something to talk about,” Stephanie explains, googling “zoomers be like” for additional points of reference.
Stephanie lands, and Ryan is waiting for her with balloons and 90DF’s favorite spinning camera person. “I was young enough to still count years in halves when I met Stephanie,” Ryan happily declares, before planting scores of clucking chicken kisses on Thursday’s fiancé.
Newly reunited, Stephanie and Ryan drive a golf cart around Steph’s money and eventually stop at a great place to remind people how successful you are. Then Steph cracks open her suitcase to dramatically display everything Ryan will be selling six days after her departure.
“I would rather have the money than all these gifts,” Ryan reminds us of the foundation of their relationshit. “I think that maybe I might ‘lose’ some of these things soon, if you know what I mean.”
“Everyone says they don’t want underwear for Christmas, but mama knows how to panty up her man!” Steph is triumphant in her sea of boxers.
Then Steph trots out glow in the dark condoms for the four times a night they supposedly bang it out. “This is very smart, because when you get older, it’s harder to find a dick in the dark,” Ryan explains.
Now that the gifting and prophylactics are out of the way, the only thing left to do is go through his phone. This is really an IQ test, to see if he’s stupid enough to save messages from other ladies, when he knows his only source of income will be landing soon. Since Ryan has a whole different phone for all his extracurriculars, he offers to turn off the password protection, so she can reread all her texts that he didn’t respond to whenever she wants. Stephanie sees this as a major development.
“Before, Ryan was really reluctant to let me look at his phone,” she says. “Not sure why any of this is a priority when I suddenly have dick in my life again after a ten month penis drought, and all these condoms on hand to skirt diseases he might have accumulated. I’m not convinced he’s changed, but I’m going to just keep buying stuff until I’m sure.”
Later on they’re prepping for a dinner date, Ryan decked out in his best buff from Surviver he’s been ordered to wrap around his head for Steph’s ethnic experience. He says he likes Stephanie’s dress, and for some reason is helping her get into it instead of out of it. Once seated they agree to order margaritas and lobster, and that’s the extent of their conversation. Ryan tells Stephanie that he knows he needs to earn her trust back, and no matter what he’s going to get to the states. Stephanie says that this is the dude she fell in love with, and we get it. So she busts out the ring that he’s supposed to propose with.
“Did someone say ring?” Calm down, Natalie.
If you’re doubting Steph’s ability to cling on till the end of the season, fret not, because it’s time to reintroduce her second plot point, which is being a cousin fucker, which has consistently rated ‘ew’ in surveys every year since 1954.
“If I don’t do this, reporting on purchases will be my only contribution,”Steph explains. “The producers say hula hooping in magic glasses before injecting myself with youth serum is only funny once, maybe twice if Darcey wasn’t a regular fixture.”
Meanwhile, Mike and Natalie are glowing from the hate-sex they had the night before, and now they’re ready to talk about working on things, without actually working on them. So basically Natalie’s record skips endlessly while Mike’s eyebrow answers.
“Either I am married or I am right. I prefer to be married. And wrong,” Natalie clarifies things. “This insecurity will last full 90 days. Then will be replaced with baby breakdown, of course.”
Mike’s mom is coming, which means free therapy, but Natalie is uneasy, and doesn’t really want to welcome anyone while they’re fighting. But since they’re never not fighting, a peaceful visit would be harder to plan than a COVID flight to Belize.
Mom aka Trish arrrives from Oklahoma, and Mike says he only sees her once a year, when tornado season makes booking airfare unnecessary. Natalie immediately declares she likes mom’s style, because this line worked on Uncle Beau, and Rebecca taught her that in the south the best way to insult someone is with a compliment. Mom and Mike start trading inside jokes, and Natalie is immediately defensive.
“I don’t know what this laughter is, but yes, they are laughing at me,” Natalie says. “All these things reference ring. I do not have ring. It is precious to me. It calls to me, my precious. Have I mention this?”
Mike starts breaking down how to play dead in event of bear attack, so you can get used to the feeling, and while Mike is joking, that’s not going to stop Natalie from demonstrating what happens when you don’t drink caffeine, alcohol, or consume a steady supply of sugar.
“This is not true. I have 40 grams of sugar each year,” Natalie is ready. “Also, I don’t have ring.”
“See?” Mike says, cracking open his sixth beer, which he pours over bacon ice cream. “I’m perfectly calm. She’s having some kind of B12 crash or whatever. I’m leaving my eyebrow behind so she can keep going while I eat the fuck-shit out of this.”
Eager to plant mom in the middle, Natalie tells Trish she thinks Mike is enacting revenge by withholding her ring. 20 minutes later mom agrees and has nearly worked through the duct tape binding her to the chair.
“I’m not obsessive. I am totally able to let go,” Natalie explains, reaching for a drawer to upgrade the duct tape to something Gorilla.
Later on they go out to dinner, which Natalie kicks off by reminding us that silence isn’t awkward to her, because unless you’re talking about her ring she has nothing to say. “I also micromanage Mike’s eating habits,” she suddenly remembers. “I wish you would not eat butter. Air coated bread is much more healthier. Here, you can wave over butter for essence.”
“But butter’s very good for you,” mom keto’s.
“What?” The butter replies.
“Real butter is good for your mind,” mom sciences. “Because of the cow’s memories stored in the udders.”
“That is one interesting,” Natalie agrees. “Have I mention I do not have ring back?”
“I’m starting to sense you want the ring back,” Mom psychics.
Having had more than enough of this shit, mom tells Natalie that orchestrating a test where you return a ring to see if he’ll give it back again is weird, and doesn’t seem to have worked out the way she planned.
“It’s like we’re both hurt about the ring,” Mike Keanus. Natalie looks like she’s going to burst when Mike’s mom suggests setting a tentative date, then they can work towards it and focus on the relationship itself, and not whether the K-1 was a worthy investment.
“I feel like I found a magic button to Mike’s heart. Trish,” Natalie is ready. “You very smart woman. I will buy you car.”
“A card?”
“No. A car.”
“Yep, this is doomed,” mom speaks truth to the producer. “Seriously, how the fuck do these two not ever arrive at any possible solutions? They just repeat the problem over and over. What do they mean when they say ‘keep working on it,’ since they’re not actually working on anything? We’re going to need a COVID-like supply of TP for this shit show.”
The next day Mike is wearing pajama pants in the kitchen, and finally someone understands there’s no point in getting dressed if you’re not leaving. Instead, Mike rocks a pancake flip, and Natalie is understandably amazed, so Mike doesn’t mention that he bathed the pan in butter and poured a full pound bag of sugar into the mix for funzies.
Having agreed to set a date, they bust out a calendar to isolate a number that meets the demands of superstition. “I like number 3,” Natalie says, as they agree to April 3rd. “Because 4+3+2020=11, and 1+1 = 2, plus one ring = 3, and you know what three is? Prime.”
“Holy fucking shit. That’s three words, too.” Mike is into it.
They tell Trish they picked a date, and she’s mellow in her congratulations, because it’s hard to celebrate with two people when you had to stitch the seams of their relationship the night before. Plus, April 3rd is like 37 days before Mother’s Day, which is fucked up. Natalie is fine with a non-church wedding, which is good because Mike isn’t Libby.
“The military just declassified stuff about aliens, so I’m about to be right about a lot of things,” Mike eyebrows. “Also, I’m not doing anything with funny hats unless it happens on Mars.”
Natalie calls her mom to tell her the date, and mom’s happy, because she’s ready to trap Mike in a closet until Beau rides to the rescue if that’s what it takes for these two to marry. After she hangs up the phone Natalie starts crying because she misses her mom. Mike holds her as she cries, and Trish cries and empathizes with her situation, and says it must be very hard to give everything up to live such a different life.
“Thank you for Michael. He’s a really good man.” Natalie feels much more secure, and all of us at home hope they get their shit together since there is a genuine sweetness buried underneath the rubble of their relationship.
Yara is standing next to a wall of Beanie babies, which can only mean she’s purchasing a pregnancy test. She says that when she had her miscarriage, the doctor told her a successful pregnancy would be unlikely. She disappears, and the producers are so in suspense about the outcome that they hover outside the bathroom door, recording her hand washing.
“We could just make this show 90 minutes instead of two hours,” the producers say. “But fuck that. C.R.E.A.M, bitches.”
Yara calls her friend Lena, and holds a pregnancy test up to the phone camera, until Lena tells her to pull it back some since all she sees is a plastic blur. Yep: pregnant, or as they say it in Mexico, pregnant-o.
“That’s right,” Andrew agrees.
“Maybe the test is wrong,” Lena says. “In America they make half of all pregnancy tests positive in advance to confuse the abortion fairy.”
Yara tells Lena that Jovi is going to be back in a few days, and she’ll talk to him about it in person. That few days arrives in the next 30 minutes of show, with Yara taking her nauseated stomach to the airport to pick up Jovi. She mentions that Jovi didn’t believe she was pregnant the last time she had a miscarriage, since he’s a graduate of the Yeah, But Are You Sure It’s Mine? School of Massholes. Eventually he was convinced that biology is still a book he didn’t read, and then he drank enough to eat the book’s pages and forgot all about it.
Yara can’t find him at the airport, and when she calls he claims he’s doing a Darcey in the bathroom and will be out any minute. Turns out he was actually changing into an alcoholic, and greets her with what’s likely his third 9AM drink in hand. This accelerates Yara towards peak ball buster mode, or as she and Jovi call it, foreplay.
“Cut it out, mom,” Jovi whines, covering his drink with his hand. “It’s just soda. Ha, ha, this passes for adulthood to me!”
“Drop away,” Yara writes a soft rock ballad as she tells him to ditch the drink.“Drop away.” A light breeze blows through the airport, her hair drifting over her eyes, as the lighting darkens, a glass breaks, and Slash readies for his guitar solo.
“I’m growing more powerful,” the fetus declares, sucking his mother’s life force through his stomach straw. “Hmmm yummy. I think I’m going to make her crave donuts slathered in lard.”
“Donuts slathered in lard, you say?” Mike adds another item to his This Week’s Menu magnetic white board.
90DF: The World’s Toughest Prisons is ready to take us back to Julia, who has been held without bail for just 20 days. That’s right, kids: all these parent meetings, forced dinners, and impatience with failure to perform 5AM farm labor has happened in 20 days.
“See? This is why I drink at 9AM,” Jovi has answers.
“You know we don’t have cocktails until we’ve warmed the kitchen crickets in our mouths,” dad is appalled. “This is not a joke. This is my house. There are rules.”
“Don’t even live with you, dude,” Jovi loses track of his plastic balancing straw. “This is the last time I take pre-flight peyote.”
After another morning of farm work, Julia calls her dad. He asks why she hasn’t called, and Julia says she’s only allowed access to her phone when she has enough stars on the chore chart, and even then she has to know the secret password, which can only be found inside her bedroom’s mystery paint buckets.
“As the head of your future family...” Julia’s dad begins.
“Did someone say head?” Brandon unzips his pants and times out Pokémon Go.
“...he needs to resolve this.”
“Oh. Never mind,” Pokémon Go is a go.
Julia knows Brandon isn’t even the head of his own body, let alone their family, so she’s going to have to draw a line, and that line is that she’s not enduring marathon disappointed lectures and sneaking into his bedroom ever again.
“I hate. I hate this place,” Julia says, finding the most important words in the English language. “It’s dirty. I look like pig. I hate you now, Brandon.” Brandon wants to like, have a work day and talk about this later. Julia wants to hash it out between hobo spider sprays.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with taking care of a few cute animals,” Brandon manages to be dismissive and patronizing, while forgetting that Julia has already met the family’s body disposal pigs.
Later he comes home and Julia is prepared to read him, completely. “It’s not as hard as you’re making it out to be,” Brandon resumes readily dismisses her feelings. “Let me say cute animals again, and act like there’s not apparently too many of them for a family to manage without imported help.”
Brandon is a bit overwhelmed by Julia’s insistence that they move out, but he’s secretly over the nonstop farm demands too, and says he’ll tell his parents they’re leaving, because he doesn’t want to lose Julia.
Speaking of prison, newly freed Amira is finally headed back to France, while Andrew’s worst resort day ever sallies forth. Through all of this he still doesn’t seem to have noticed she’s recovering from a truly traumatic experience, and maybe he should take his ass to France to comfort her. Or, you know, call her.
Amira’s father has been worried sick, and when Amira finally lands, COVID be damned, dude is hugging his daughter.
“SIX FEET!” A stranger yells, walking by with their nose exposed.
Amira feels guilty because her father suffered because of her, which is the most sincerely sweet family moment on this show since Kyle and Noon’s season. She tells dad that they took her passport, phone, and watch, and basically locked her up for three days. Then they told her she was being rejected for no passport...in an envelope that included her passport. This detail is how you know this story is 100% true.
“We figured she could find it on the way to the airport,” Mexico explains. “Hey, at least the people we put in cages are adults.”
“Was it three days?” Andrew is confused. “Huh. Time flies, I guess!”
Amira is beginning to piece together the depth of Andrew’s selfishness, and she says that she wishes Andrew would have looked for her while she was detained.
“I did!” Andrew insists, flipping through the room service menu. “I even called America and was all, dude you’ve got to help us. But you know Trump’s a busy man, and he can’t hear us over the wall, let alone speak Mexico.”
No one feels more keenly aware of Andrew’s shortcomings than Amira’s father, who figured out his daughter was in trouble long before Andrew did. Then he lost sleep, looked, and remembered to express concern when she was finally free.
“I think he’s not the right man for you,” dad is okay with playing Captain Obvious if the situation demands it. “However, this television exposure should at least guarantee than Tom from London hits on you, aggressively.”
This leads Amira to further fret that she’s also going to have to repair Andrew’s relationship with her father, which is unlikely, since he used their debut emergency phone call to compliment dad’s shirt choice.
Andrew says that now that he knows Amira’s safe, he can do a little self care and stop suffering over a cheeseburger in the lounge. When Amira calls, he’s the portrait of concern. “It’s very urgent that we get married,” he says, removing the umbrella and bouquet of pineapple from his drink. “But since I’m here, I’m going to do a little four-wheeling and maybe launch myself off a water slide. I’m totally going to demand to get on a plane without a face mask on the way home, after I talk you into meeting me in a Turkish prison.”
Amira is hurt that he’s vacationing without her, and carrying on like nothing even happened, and feels like there’s already no room for her to open up about what happened to her. So she hangs up on him, and for some reason the rest of us are still forced to hear his voice, when we’d be okay with the screen just going black, and maybe the sound of him falling over travel guides.
NEXT TIME: Jovi still doesn’t understand how sex works, Mike doesn’t understand how a K-1 works, Andrew doesn’t understand how other people work, Tarik and Hazel still call polyamory “being bisexual,” Brandon’s parents attempt to bully him into remaining a toddler, and Stephanie admits to Ryan that she’s a cousin fucker.
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A few months ago, my best friend Jeremy called and asked if he could come over. He told me about this crazy new side of the internet that he had found. I had absolutely no idea what he was taking about. He was always up to something mischievous though. Even as an adult, he still had the enthusiasm of a child when he became excited. Because of that, it was always hard to tell him no. I could tell that this seemed important to him, so I told him to just come over and show me what the hell he was talking about.
He came over to my house later that same day. He showed up with a flash drive. He was so excited, he didn’t even take off his shoes. He ran over to my already open laptop that was sitting on my living room table and immediately plugged the flash drive in. He had that obnoxious smile across his face. It was the same the smile he made when we were kids. The same taunting grin he made right before we were about to do something our parents would be furious about.
“So much for saying hello! You really should knock first. What if I was naked?!” My voice was playful.
“Shut up, and come sit down. Oh, and I’m sorry for just barging in like that.” He said just as playfully.
“Whatever. You’re definitely not sorry. Im going to go make us some tea and I’ll be right out.” I smiled as I walked away.
Around ten minutes later, I came back in with two mugs full of freshly brewed tea. I sat the tea down on the table in front of my couch and sat down next to Jeremy. I looked over at my laptop. My eyes immediately fixated on the screen. The flash drive contained a whole different operating system. I watched my laptop boot up and start running an operating system I had never even seen before. My eyes then shot their gaze at Jeremy.
“What the hell is this? Is this going to mess up my computer? You know I can’t afford another one if this one breaks. Most importantly, I need it for school. All of my schoolwork is on there. You-“ My voice was sharp, but before I could finish talking he cut me off.
“You worry too much. Just relax. I tested it out on my computer, and everything went fine. Just wait for it to boot up. Your computer will return to normal once I power it down and remove the flash drive.” His voice had a reassuring tone.
“Yeah, whatever. Fine.” I said reluctantly.
After about ten more minutes of us just sitting there watching this foreign operating system load, it finally finished. The Home Screen was a sold shade of blue, and there were only two icons. One was a web browser. The other one was some sort of VPN. In the corner was a search bar. I tried typing all kinds of words in it, but nothing came up.
Eventually after I was done clicking around, Jeremy took over the controls. He opened up a web browser. It was a search engine I had never seen before. Actually, it was a search engine I had never even heard of. I watched him manically type in random numbers and letters into the search engine.
Before I could even ask what he was doing, he hit enter and a Wikipedia page came up. Towards the middle of page was a list of links. They all had different names. “The Credit Card Company, Guns Are Great, and The One Stop Shop” were names of some of the links. Most links had extremely illegal titles and definitely lead to illegal activities. Some of them were just down right disgusting and disturbing. I’d rather not go into detail about those links.
Jeremy quickly identified what he was looking for. It was a link called “The Gore Store”. He was always into that kind of stuff. I never understood why. Gore was just fascinating to him. I myself could not say the same. It had to have been fake anyways, right? I just wanted to get it over with, so I sat quietly and waited for the page to load.
Once it loaded, my screen was filled with obscene imagine of mutilated bodies. There were videos of different people getting killed in different ways. It was insanely graphic. He showed me two thirty second clips before I had to run to the bathroom. I could hear Jeremy’s laughter as I viscously gagged over my toilet.
When I came out of the bathroom, the gore page was gone, and he was back on the Wikipedia page. I watched his eyes dart around the screen. It looked like he was trying to find something in particular. Before if I could ask what he was doing, he let out an “Ah hah!”
“What is it? I’m not sure if this whole dark web thing is for me. Maybe we should just turn it off. Wha-“ Before I could even finish my sentence, he cut me off again.
“Look what I found. It’s pretty cool. I think you’ll actually like it.” He said confidently.
I reluctantly agreed and sat back down on the couch beside him. The computer curser was hovered over a link simply named “Eyes”. I was convinced it was about to be the most nauseating thing in the world. I pictured dangling eyeballs or blood filled eye sockets. It had to be something along those lines.
He could tell I was unprepared, and he immediately clicked the button after I gave a slight nod of approval. I was not expecting what I saw. They were eyes alright, normal eyes. It looked like a business page for selling contacts. It appeared professional, and there was nothing strange about it. Except for the fact that this seemingly normal business page was on the dark web. I had a look through their selection and ended up asking Jeremy to buy me a pair. He already had the correct form of currency in some sort of account. He thought it was funny, of course, and bought them without a second thought. I thanked him and we talked about what they were going to look like. We were both excited.
After Jeremy left that night, he took the flash drive with him. He explained that he was going away on a business trip and wouldn’t be back for a week or two. He said that he sent the package directly to my house, but to call him if there was any delivery issues. The estimated arrival date was 3 weeks from that time anyways. I figured he would be back by then. That way we could experience unboxing them and me struggling to put them in, together. He did find the website and pay for them after all.
Two days later, I was surprised when I opened my front door to get the mail and saw a package at my front door. I quickly got my mail and took the package inside. I remember thinking these couldn’t be the contacts. It was way too early. I grabbed a box cutter from the kitchen and started to slice open the package.
There they were. The bright green contacts that had a slight blue fade were in that little box. They were beautiful. I know I told Jeremy that I would wait, but I was too excited. I took them out of the box and soaked them in the contact solution that came with the package. I looked in the mirror at my dark brown eyes while the contacts sat in the solution. I smiled at the fact that my eyes were about to be a completely different color, even if it was only temporarily. I always wanted brighter eyes.
I had never put in contacts before, so I expected it be quite tricky for my first try. To my surprise, I put both of them in with quite ease. It’s safe to say I gave myself a pat on the back. I was thoroughly impressed, it was like I had been doing it all of my life. They slid right into place and didn’t budge or slide at all.
After looking in the mirror for who knows how long, I decided to call Jeremy and tell him about it. He didn’t answer. I figured he was probably working, and he would eventually call me back. When he didn’t pick up, I looked back into the mirror, stunned by my new eye color. I started taking pictures to update my social platforms. My self esteem skyrocketed.
When I was done obsessing over my new contacts, I decided I should probably make dinner. I lived by myself, and I always made way too much food. I’d use the left overs for lunch, so it never really went to waste. That night I decided to make a whole lasagna. It was one of my favorite meals, and I figured I could give some to my elderly neighbor as well.
I put a pot of water on the stove to bring it to a boil. As I was pulling out the noodles, something caught my eye. It was like a quick shadow flew by my peripheral vision. I stopped and looked around, but I saw nothing. I remember thinking it was strange, but not uncommon. I thought it was just my eyes playing tricks on me.
I finished prepping and lined the cooked noodles on a sheet of aluminum foil. I opened up a package of raw meat to cook in an already hot pan. As I went to open the meat, I glanced over at the noodles. This time I was looking straight at them. A wave of horror washed over my face.
The noodles had turned into maggots. They were squirming all over the aluminum foil. I watched as some of them wiggled themselves off of the counter. Each time one hit the ground I flinched. They were big. They were about as big as the top part of a pointer finger. I grabbed the broom and the garbage can and swept them all into the garbage. I took it outside to the garbage bin immediately.
After that, I had completely lost my appetite. I decided I needed to take a bath to try to calm down and recollect my thoughts. I made some tea, lit some candles, and filled the bathtub. I slowly got into the bath as the hot water touched my skin. It was quiet, and peaceful. I finally had time to think. I closed my eyes and let my head rest against the back of the tub.
“What just happened? I’m definitely not seeing things. Those maggots were real. How in the world did my freshly boiled noodles turn into maggots. It doesn’t make sense” I whispered my thoughts aloud.
When I opened my eyes to gaze at the relaxing set up I had put together, I jumped out of the water. The bath water was a deep shade of red now, and every candle I had lit had went out. I quickly wrapped myself in a towel and turned the main light on. The candles weren’t lit, but the water was clear again. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going back in there.
I dried myself off and put on fresh clothes. I went back into the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair before bed. I turned on the sink and grabbed my toothbrush. Right before I started brushing my teeth, I looked up into the mirror. I felt a knot form in my stomach.
I was holding the toothbrush in my mouth, but my reflection wasn’t. I watched my reflection sway back and forth. The closer I leaned in, the farther my reflection would back up. It giggled as I watched my own reflection tear out my eyeballs. My reflection’s eyes were dangling so low that they touched it’s mouth. It licked one of the eyeballs, and one of contacts flipped on it’s tongue. It started to chew it like it was food. Each chew sounded like broken pieces of plastic. I watching blood start to fall from my reflection’s eyes. I couldn’t take anymore. I washed out my mouth and ran back into my bedroom.
I sat down at my vanity and tried to take out the contacts without looking into the mirror. I thought they’d be easy to remove since they were so easy to put in. I was wrong. No matter what I did they wouldn’t budge. Not even a little bit. I tried pinching it, moving it, pushing and sliding it. Nothing. After thirty minutes of nothing but severely irritating my eye, I gave up. I straightened by beck from my bent over position and looked in my vanity mirror. My reflection was laughing at me.
I covered all of the mirrors in my house until I could figure out some way to get these things out of my eyes. They were a pretty natural color, so if I went out in public nobody would even notice I had contacts stuck in my eyes. I was also skeptical to call a doctor at the time considering I received these contacts from the dark web. I decided to try and rationalize things. I realized I sure didn’t want to sleep with them in, so I’d have to stay awake as long as possible until I found a solution.
I went into my living room to watch TV. It was the only place in the house where I couldn’t see myself in some way. My house looked slightly abandoned. I had blankets draped over anything that could cause a reflection.
I leaned forward to grab the remote which had fallen on the floor. Upon picking it up, I felt a sharp pain throughout my entire hand. I immediately dropped the remote and looked at my aching palm. Every inch of my hand was riddled in cuts. I watched the blood drip from my hand onto the floor. I looked down to find the remote on the ground still. The buttons stuck out and came to a sharp point. They were sharper than a newly opened razor.
I kicked the remote as hard as I could. I heard it crash against the wall and hit the floor. With my head in hands, I heard the television turn on. It was playing a show I couldn’t recognize. I lifted my head and looked towards the television.
It was me.
I was on my own television. The quality was grainy, but I could make out what was happening. The television showed me walking across the street from the local grocery store. On my way across the road, a huge truck came at full speed. In a blink of an eye, the truck hit me, and I watched my lifeless body drag against the sidewalk. Then it turned back off.
I didn’t know what to do. I was scrambling around trying to figure something out. I ended up calling Jeremy. He seemed a bit confused, and honestly it didn’t even sound like he believed me. It’s like he thought I was joking around. He ended up just hanging up on me, thinking I was pranking him.
When I hung up my phone, I slammed it down on my hallway floor. I had been sitting there ever since the television situation. Tears filled my eyes as I heard my phone vibrate against the wooden floor. I picked up my phone and saw it was a text message from an unknown number.
“Go o u t s i d e.” Is all it read.
I tried calling the number back. Of course that didn’t work, considering there was no number to begin with. The Caller ID just said “Unknown”. At this point I was trying everything. What more did I have to lose?
I walked past my kitchen and glanced over at the bowl of fruit I kept on the counter. They were all black and rotten. I didn’t stop though. I just wanted to make it to my front door. I didn’t plan on actually fully going outside, but a peak wouldn’t hurt. At least that’s what I thought.
Before I could put my hand on the doorknob, someone started knocking.
“Package delivery.” The voice was deep and foreign. I opened up my door just a tad, and there stood the delivery man. His eyes were wide, really wide. They looked dry like he hadn’t blinked in hours. He had slash wounds across his entire face and down his neck. He was incredibly lanky and tall. He reached out his arms to hand me the package, and I realized he was missing 6 fingers. The wounds looked incredibly fresh. Blood soiled the entire box.
“Just leave it. I’ll get it.” I said quickly.
I slammed the door in his face and locked every single door in my house that led to the outside. Once I was sure he was gone, I quickly grabbed the package and pulled it in the house. Everything around me was slowly decaying, even the people outside.
I eventually made my way back to my room. My stairs were now littered with nails sticking directly upwards. I tried to avoid as many as I could, but I still stabbed the bottom of my feet multiple times. There were countless bloody holes in my feet. I left a crimson trail wherever I walked.
I walked into the bathroom that was connected to bedroom once more. I pulled off the cover and looked at myself again. This time, my reflection was still laughing, but pieces of flesh dangled from different areas of my face. My neck was snapped and I had noose around my neck. My tongue salivated black looking tar and my eyes were now completely hollowed out.
I haven’t slept in three days. I’m afraid to go to sleep. What if I wake up and my entire house is embedded in barbed wire? What if my floor is completely made out of shards of glass? What if everything around me turns into an ultimate death trap? I’m absolutely terrified.
I’m not taking any chances. Especially since I brought the box inside. I ended up opening it. There was another box inside. This box was slightly cleaner, but had a message scratched along the top. It was barely legible, but it read:
“Open to find out when your untimely demise will fall upon you. Clock’s ticking.”
Again, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I opened the second box. This time the box contained a handwritten note.
“Not all eyes are meant to be a prize. The contacts you contain will show the other side. You can live with this vision or choose your demise. I left you a gift, now you can decide.”
I’ve been sitting here for hours now. All of my food is maggot infested and moldy. I need to go to the grocery store, but I keep looking at the gift that sat below the note. I never really thought this would ever be an appropriate gift for anyone, but I can’t help but gaze at this already tied noose.
I knew going on the dark web was a bad idea.

Hello everyone, for the last few months I have been creating long form write-ups on a variety of unsolved cases. If you are interested in other lengthy write ups you can find them on my profile- https://www.reddit.com/useQuirky-Moto.
The crime I want to discuss today was committed in Wenatchee, Washington a medium sized town in the middle of Washington state. As a Washingtonian, this case has always stuck with me as I rememberwhen it happened so vividly. I remember my grandma driving all around town in search of the last taser which she purchased at a sporting store. The clerk told her it was the last one in stock and that he had never sold so many tasers, firearms, and pepper sprays in his life. It really was one of the crimes that shook an entire region and changed how people lived. But first, let’s talk about the area.
If you are not interested skip until The Crime section.
The area
Wenatchee is a town of 30,000 people in dead center of Washington state. It is not near anyfreeways meaning that it is not necessarily small, but it isn't close to any large population centers. The closest freeway access is 40 miles to the south east and the high desert is devoid of any large population centers for 100 miles in any direction, Seattle to the west, Spokane to the east and Tri Cities to the south are all in equal distance from Wenatchee. The whole county, Chelan County (pronounced SHUH-lan), boasts only 5 incorporated towns. Wenatchee- 30,000, Chelan- 3000, Cashmere-3000, Entiat- 1000, and Leavenworth- 1900.
Wenatchee sits on the banks of the mighty Columbia River. The city is on a county line, split into two townships, Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, population 9,000. As mentioned before Wenatchee is the largest city in ovver a hundred miles. It is home to the region’s only sizable hospital, only animal shelter, only shoe store, etc. It is the seat of an area know as North Central Washington or NCW as the locals call it, a map of which can be found here. The paper, the Wenatchee World, available in both English and Spanish, covers a whopping four counties. In this isolated area a murder was all that was talked about for months, not even in town, but in all four surrounding counties. The paper and radio stations reported on it constantly and everyone in town had connections to the crimes. It really was one of those stories that changed a whole community and unfortunately that didn’t change with a trial and a conviction.
Demographics of Wenatchee show that the town is about 70% white and 30% Hispanic/Latino of any race. However, due to the agricultural nature of the region, seasonal constantly move in and out of the area so the real split is more like 50/50 between white Americans and those with Latin American origin. The school district for example is over 50% “Latino.”
The Crime
Mackenzie Cowell was born in 1992 to Wendy and Reid Cowell, the youngest of their three children. The young family spent their time living in and around the Wenatchee Valley. When Mackenzie was 7, her parents had a tempestuous divorce, which resulted in restraining orders against each other. Despite the rocky relationship both Reid and Wendy shared custody of their children with Mackenzie splitting her time between her two parents. Mackenzie was a girly girl but she also an athlete who was busy, ambitious, and hard working. After starting high school life at Cashmere High School, she transferred to the Wenatchee School District when her mom moved into town, despite living most of her time at father's house in Orondo, Washington. Mackenzie joined the Applettes dance team at the high school. Her dad explained that Mackenzie was interested in makeup, hair care, and clothes. She spent most of her time dancing. She was part of two dance studios outside of her school dance team and she could often be seen working out at the gym. At age 16 Mackenzie started seeing Joaquin Villasano, a young man from nearby Pateros. Joaquin was 18 or 19 years old at the time. At the time of her disappearance, the two had been together for almost two years.
In 2010 Mackenzie was a senior in high school and also part of a vocational program where she could get high school credits for getting training in a job. Mackenzie attended school from approximately 7:30 a.m. to noon, and then finished her day the Academy of Hair Design where she was in class from noon till 5 pm. The Academy of Hair Design was in downtown Wenatchee, 5-minute drive from Wenatchee High School. There is a city-owned public parking lot directly behind the beauty school. The school had two routes for graduation. The students were either adults who attended school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or were high schoolers were in the ½ day vocational program. The students were also split into first-year and second-year classes although they were sometimes lumped together for certain lessons (Source).
On February 9th, 2010 17-year-old Mackenzie Cowell left home at approximately 7:15 a.m. and drove to school in her red Grand Prix sedan. She attended class and then went to the Academy of Hair Design for the rest of her day. Reid Cowell was expecting her home after class at 5 p.m. The two had dinner plans and Reid was planning on making teriyaki burgers with his daughter that night. Mackenzie was at the beauty school at about 3 p.m. when she asked a classmate if she needed to sign out of the building if she was only going to be gone for 15 minutes. This is the last known conversation that Mackenzie ever had (Source). Classmates assumed that Mackenzie was leaving to go get coffee at Auto Mocha, a drive-through coffee stand she frequented several days per week (Source). The stand was only a four-minute drive from beauty school. Security footage shows Mackenzie walking to her car at 3:01 p.m. holding her purse. Nothing seems amiss. She starts the car and drives away (Source).
At this time Mackenzie calls a phone number that she had never called before. It was a landline number to a residence in East Wenatchee. She did not get through to this number and the family who lived at the residence had a generic voicemail message, not a personalized one. Mackenzie rapidly called this number five more times but never got through. (Later investigation showed that this family did not know Mackenzie. Mackenzie had never called them before and the family was determined to not be involved in Mackenzie's subsequent disappearance as they were all at work that day and had no connection to Cowell.) Despite this it is obvious that Mackenzie was trying to contact someone at this time). The calls were in such rapid succession that some investigators thought it was possibly a “butt dial” (Source). According to investigators, this was the only strange activity on Mackenzie’s phone in the week leading up to Feb. 9th. All her other texts and calls were to known numbers. She was not taking to anyone new or different than usual.
One minute later at 3:02 pm Mackenzie's car is seen on a traffic camera heading west on Kittitas Avenue, toward the coffee stand and pretty much everything else in Wenatchee (Source)..) According to baristas, Mackenzie never made it to the stand that day.
3:15 pm came and went but Mackenzie did not return to class. Mackenzie sent her last text at 3:26 p.m. The message was to her boyfriend and said simply “hey.” The last incoming activity on Mackenzie's phone came from her boyfriend Joaquin at 3:42 p.m. He responded “hey”. This is the last usage Mackenzie’s phone, which was odd for the teen who sent over 200 text messages per day on my maroon colored EnV flip phone. At 5:42 p.m. her phone “pinged” again and it is presumed that this is when the phone was turned off (Source).
Classes ended at the Academy at 5 p.m. but Mackenzie never returned to the building. At approximately 5:40 p.m. Reid called his daughter to inquire about her whereabouts as he expected her home already but her phone went straight to voicemail. He called her several more times over the next couple of hours but got no response. Panic began to set in when Mackenzie’s 8 p.m. weekday curfew passed without word from Mackenzie. At this point Reid made a couple of calls including to Joaquin Villasano. Joaquin revealed that he had not heard from Mackenzie since 3:30 p.m. Reid called a couple of Mackenzie’s friends but no one had heard from her (Source).
At around 8 p.m. a rancher five miles south of Wenatchee in the Pitcher Canyon area called the police to report that a red sedan had been abandoned near his driveway. He said he had first noticed it around 7 pm. The Pitcher Canyon area is pretty remote. While there are people who live in the area it's mostly empty and spread out. Pitcher Canyon Road itself is a dead-end and the pavement quickly morphs into a dirt track. A little before 10 p.m. an officer came to the area to inspect the abandoned car. He ran the license plate and called the car's owner, Reid Cowell. Reid explained that not only was the car missing, his daughter was missing as well. Inside the car was Mackenzie's purse, her gym bag, and some clothes. Her keys, debit card, and cell phone were missing. There was only one set of footprints in the snow leading away from the car. It appeared that someone parked the car, got out, locked it, and walked away back towards Wenatchee. A search was immediately launched in the area once it was evident that Mackenzie was a missing person and not just a teenager who had stayed out too late. Joaquin, Reid, and Reid’s girlfriend arrived at the scene to begin looking for the teen.
For the next several days a helicopter searched the vicinity under the impression that Mackenzie was nearby. A bloodhound was brought to the area but the k-9 officer was unable to find Mackenzie’s scent anywhere but the car. (Source). People who lived in Pitcher Canyon were interviewed and three people recalled seeing similar occurrence. In between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., three independent witnesses recalled seeing a thin man with dark hair and a dark coat walking down Pitcher Canyon Road away from the car and towards Wenatchee (Source). The sight was odd as you don't typically see people walking on rural roads in the winter time miles away from town. One report says that the man walking down the road was white, but most reports do not note this.
Meanwhile, Mackenzie's phone records were obtained, coworkers were interviewed, alibis were checked. Preliminary investigation showed that Joaquin, Reid, Wendy, and Reid’s girlfriend were all at work when the car was abandoned, but they weren’t cleared just yet. For 4 days, no trace of Mackenzie was found. Reid and Wendy had their restraining orders removed so that they could work together to search for their daughter (Source).
On February 13th, 000222010 a homeowner was strolling the beach on the Columbia River at an area called Crescent Bar when she saw a woman in the water. She called police. The body belonged to Mackenzie Cowell. Mackenzie was determined to have died on February 9th at around 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. right after she went missing. She had no drugs or alcohol in her system, she had not been sexually assaulted, and she was found still clothed and her beauty school uniform. The autopsy reported that Mackenzie had been strangled, hit in the head, and then had her throat slashed. Post-mortem someone had tried to dismember her by cutting her off her arm but was unsuccessful. The murder weapon, a kitchen knife, was found stuck in Mackenzie's shoulder. One report says she had duct tape on her mouth. Near her body was found an additional length of duct tape and a plastic bag. Some other small items were collected but they were determined to not be related. Mackenzie's missing items such as her keys, her debit card, and her phone were not with the body. Mackenzie had been placed partially in the water of the Columbia River on the shoreline 50 feet in front of a vacant home (Source). Crescent Bar is more than 20 miles east of Wenatchee, the opposite direction from Pitcher Canyon. It is a vacation spot along the river with only a few hundred residents at best. There is no gas station or grocery store in Crescent Bar.
One later report mentioned that a second kitchen knife, which had been purchased at Wenatchee’s Stan’s Merry Mart, was also near the body, but it is unknown if this knife held any evidentiary value. Police did not want to release all evidence to the public so they kept this information about the second knife close to their chest in order to weed out false confessions. This lead was released only when the case had gone cold. The public was asked to call the task force if they knew someone who owned that particular set or had thrown it out in the days following the murder.
Several pieces of evidence were sent the State Crime Lab in Cheney in order to be tested. Scientists found nothing of evidence on the plastic bag near Mackenzie's body however, they did find blood on the length of duct tape found near the scene, as well as trace amounts of DNA from two unknown males. They also found DNA from three males on the knife. Swabs from Mackenzie's car were taken and an unknown male DNA profile was found on her steering wheel. There was also unknown male DNA profile on her left-hand fingernail. It is unclear if all these DNA samples came from different men, or if there was some overlap, but most sources seem to operate under the impression that these were all different contributors. No female DNA was found at the crime scene other than Mackenzie’s.
A multi-agency task force was formed with the sole intention of solving this crime, the vastest the area had ever seen. Initially Mackenzie's boyfriend and family members were looked at as suspects. Within a couple of months Joaquin, Reid, Wendy, and Mackenzie's brothers had all been “cleared 100%.” Police interviewed 750 people and collected DNA swabs from 50 (Source). I could find no indication that Joaquin and Mackenzie's family had been DNA swabbed, but I'm assuming that they had. Mackenzie's boyfriend and her parents were ruled out via alibi, phone records, and witness statements which place them elsewhere at the time of Mackenzie's disappearance and murder. Joaquin as well as Mackenzie's parents were at work all day on the day of Mackenzie disappearance and their whereabouts can be confirmed with co-worker sightings, and phone records (Source).
Joaquin Villasano was a polygraphed on two different occasions. According to one documentary Joaquin said he failed one question on the test which was, “do you know who killed to Mackenzie?” Despite failing that question on the lie detector police have always reiterated that Joaquin has been “cleared 100%” and that his alibi is “rock solid.” They've confirmed the same thing with Mackenzie's brothers and Mackenzie's parents (Source).
Suspicion then turned to Mackenzie's mother's boyfriend a man named Joey Fisher. Joey Fisher has a somewhat storied life and a minor criminal history, but most importanly Mackenzie and Joey hated each other with the two getting into a huge argument just the day before. Mackenzie allegedly told her mother that it was either “him or me.” But like the others Joey Fisher had a rock-solid alibi of being at work miles away on February 9th (Source). I know Joey was looked at pretty seriously as I remember that they completely ripped apart his house in Wenatchee and took loads of things away for testing. I had a friend who lived nearby and remember getting a call when it was happening. Additionally, these initial male suspects in the case, Joaquin, Reid, and Joey did not match the description of the man seen walking away from Mackenzie's car. Both Reid and Joey were light-complected men with blond or reddish gray hair which did not match the witness sightings. Joaquin on the other hand was not white or thin. Of course, it goes without saying that eyewitness testimony is spotty at best and that sundown was at 5:14 pm, so the witnesses did not necessarily see this man in the good light. But the point still stands that three independent people saw a man which they all described similarly (Source).
Investigators attempted to use cell phone data to figure out where Mackenzie was after she was seen leaving the Academy of Hair Design. The local paper reported that Mackenzie’s last text was sent from an area right near the Columbia River called the Orondo Street boat launch. This area is a pretty deserted area during the winter time. The boat launch is in a waterfront park but it is not near the playground or picnic areas and is instead on the edge of the park near some industrial buildings. Investigators seem to be under the impression that Mackenzie was texting Joaquin from the parking lot of the boat launch. They got this information from Mackenzie's cell phone carrier, Verizon, who said that Mackenzie was at the boat launch with “90% certainty”. Police canvassed the area and interviewed as many people as they could regarding if they had seen Mackenzie or her car in the area at the time, but no one had. Many speculated that Mackenzie must have been meeting someone there. But when Mackenzie's car was last seen on the traffic camera, she was actually traveling away from the boat launch (Source).
With obvious suspects ruled out and the boat launch canvas a bust, investigators felt that they were at a dead end, when a police informant named Liz Reid came forward. In court documents she is referred to as CI1002. The following story from Liz Reid was not reported on at all in local media until after an arrest had come in this case so while police apparently chased down this lead for months, it was not common knowledge in town at the time.
Liz Reid was a self-proclaimed pill popper, prescription shopper who also had a past of selling drugs almost as much as she was doing them. Liz called police and claimed that she knew who committed this awful crime. Two local drug dealers her acquaintances Emmanuel “Buddha” Cerros and Sam Cuevas killed Mackenzie in a case of mistaken identity. Liz claimed that these men thought Mackenzie was an informant from the drug world and decided to kill her to “shut that b**** up.” They told Liz some information on the crime that have not been released to the media yet, such as Mackenzie being both strangled and slashed, but police said that this information had already been reported on in the paper.
Affidavits and documents unsealed before the eventual court date, show that one of Mackenzie’s coworkers reported to police that right before she disappeared, Mackenzie said she was “going out back to meet some guys from Tacoma” and to “make plans for later this evening.” Mackenzie said she was going to the parking lot to talk to these men. Liz Reid claimed that after this conversation, four men overpowered Mackenzie and got into her car. They drove her car away but some of the men followed in another car, a green Jeep Cherokee. Reid said two of these attackers were Cuevas and Cerros. A third man has his name redacted or removed from the documents, and the fourth man is left unnamed. Reid claimed that one of the men reached in to Mackenzie's car in order to grab her.
If this part of the story is true, it is unclear where this happened, as security footage shows Mackenzie getting into her car alone. There's no green Jeep Cherokee, no men grabbing her, and no other people visible in her car.
Liz claimed that two of the men, Cerros and Cuevas, then took Mackenzie to a bluff overlooking Crescent Bar where they choked her twice, as she didn't die the first time and then put her body in the river (source). Liz even said that there was a snuff film of the killing and that she had seen it. For months, this lead was tracked down. Police looked for the snuff film and repeatedly interviewed both Cerros and Cuevas. Cuevas had one charge of conspiracy to deliver illegal drugs, but Cerros has a very long rap sheet. Like Reid he liked using prescription pills, heroin, and methadone. He also had charges for selling all of these substances in front of an elementary school, weapons charges, and another accusation of using and selling drugs in front of his own children resulting in custody issues. I can find no indication that either men had violent crimes in their pasts, but it is obvious that all three of these people had their own demons. Police tapped Cerros’s and Cuevas’ phones and Liz called the men repeatedly in order to get them to incriminate themselves, but nothing incriminating was ever said or recorded. Law enforcement even went as far as to buy Cerros’ green Jeep when he put it up for sale in 2010, but no evidence was found, except a brown hair that was never DNA tested.
At one point on the phone, Cuevas told Liz Reid go to Crescent Bar to retrieve a ring. Liz believed that the ring was Mackenzie’s. Liz led law enforcement to a secluded bluff, where the group discovered a silver ring. Liz claims that the ring matched a selfie Mackenzie had taken. Police took the ring and tested it but no DNA was found on the ring and Mackenzie’s boyfriend, her family, and some of her friends could not identify the ring as hers (Source). Cigarettes at the bluff were collected and the DNA on the butts matched Sam Cuevas, but no other evidence was found (source). It is unclear how close this bluff is the area where the victim was discovered.
Within a few months police had determined that both Cerros and Cuevas had alibis as both were working jobs at the time. Neither man’s phone showed that he had been in Crescent bar or Quincy at the time of Mackenzie’s death or disappearance and again work records showed that both men were at work in Wenatchee (Source). Sometime in the summer of 2010, Liz recanted her story claiming that she felt threatened by law enforcement, and then claimed that there was no snuff film. She later recontacted in police and said that her story was true but that there was no snuff film. She now claims that snuff film does exist. The strange circumstantial evidence aside, Reid’s story was disregarded and the police moved on to other leads. Other law enforcement agencies such as the DEA have reported that in past cases Liz has been a reliable witness who has helped them take down four narcotic traffickers in Seattle and the surrounding cities.
Once again at a dead end, the task force looked through old leads when they got a letter from yet another police informant named Theo Keyes. Keyes was in prison in Oregon for exposing himself to drive through baristas. Theo had lived in Wenatchee in the past and while in jail he wrote the task force a letter explaining that an old friend of his, Chris Wilson, who was attending the Academy of Hair Design with Mackenzie had a fascination with “death, dead bodies, and serial killers.” He reported that he never thought much of it until realize that Mackenzie and Wilson were going to the same hair school. He then reported that Wilson had once choked one of their friends, Shawna Novak, at a party. Wilson then unexpectedly released Novak and acted like the incident never happened. Novak was confused and left the party. Keyes also explained that Wilson had worked at two area funeral homes that had been fired from one of them due to inappropriate behavior.
Investigators interviewed Shawna Novak who explained that Theo Keyes’ story was accurate and that Wilson had choked her once at a party only a few weeks before Mackenzie’s death. Novak also explained that she had convinced herself that it was just a really strange headlock hug, and that perhaps Wilson didn't mean to choke her. But she said that the situation was odd nonetheless. Early in 2010, before Mackenzie went missing, Novak allegedly told her mother that if she ever went missing, Chris Wilson was probably to blame. Unfortunately, Novak has a history of crime and psychiatric disorders. Police were worried that she would not make a good trial witness.
Some looking into Keyes shows that like Liz Reid and Shawna Novak, he's had a storied past. He's had a couple of convictions for various small crimes, such as harassment, before being convicted of exposing himself. He also had psychiatric issues, claiming online that he is both bipolar and schizoaffective but that he dislikes being put in a box and often goes off of his medication (Source). Police have admitted that Keyes also provided several other tips earlier in the investigation, but that the tips had not panned out. Due to his background of sex crimes, Theo Keyes’ DNA was checked against the DNA left at crime scene, and investigators determined Keyes was not a contributor to any of the DNA. Despite these two disorders and criminal background, Keyes’ story was backed up by Novak and others at the party so his story was taken seriously.
When going through their notes from early on in the investigation police realized that an anonymous tipster, who said she worked at the Hair Academy, reported that Wilson told her that he liked working at the funeral home because he “got to cut people up (Source).” These two pieces of information in hand, police decided to take a harder look at Chris Wilson.
Christopher Scott Wilson was an odd duck to say in the least. Born in Bellevue, Washington to a single mother Chris Wilson spent the first couple years of his life living in the suburbs of Seattle where his grandfather was police chief of a town called Issaquah. Chris took after his mother in many ways, like her he was artistic and marched the beat of his own drum. Chris's mother, Kathleen Zornes, was a flight attendant, business owner, and hair stylist who never settled down for long. In the early 1980s when Chris was a toddler, Kathleen married a man named Rick Wilson who adopted the boy as his own. Soon the couple had another son but tragically Rick Wilson passed away in an accident. According to Zornes it was at this point that Chris became interested in working in the funeral industry after seeing his father's body.
Chris spent his teenage years in Chelan, Washington about 30 miles from Wenatchee. It’s unclear if Chris went to Chelan high school but if my memory serves me correct, he was actually homeschooled for part or all of the time. In Chelan his mother owned a skateboard and bike shop and Chris spent most of his free time skateboarding and becoming part of that lifestyle. In his early twenties he joined the military but was medically discharged and always said he disliked that part of his life. He tried living in other states but always made his way back to Central Washington never quite sure of how to fit in. At the time of Mackenzie’s murder, Wilson was 29 years old and had no criminal record (Source). Interviews with workers and students at The Academy of Hair Design revealed that some women found Chris creepy, dark, or intimidating. Others said he was simply artsy and strange. TO BE CONTINUED... Full list of sources in part 2 https://www.cbsnews.com/video/secrets-of-the-river-1/

Welcome to another recrap of 90 Day Fiancé, where we learn all the things money can buy, like denial, a resort vacation for one, unpaid slave labor, and nonrefundable mid-plague airfare.
COVID-19 has finally decided to stop inconveniencing Stephanie, so she’s back to enjoying her first high school relationship and pondering which hula hoop to pack. It might take an extra suitcase, since Steph’s been shopping for Ryan since before they met.
“I have too much money, and instead of giving to charities, I buy affection,” she explains. “Affection has been around WAY longer than Bitcoin, you know. This is a little watch for the big watches to wear. It cost $3500. And this is a tiny pair of pants for gnomes that’s been stitched by other gnomes that live inside of watches. They cost Blair dollars, and if you can’t figure out what that is, you can’t afford gnome pants.”
Stephanie’s also bringing her mother’s ring for the fabled proposal she’s orchestrated in advance, and based upon their last telephone doom spiral, she knows this is exactly as smart as cramming said treasure into a checked suitcase.
“Time out: Who the fuck is taking care of me, now that the food lady is gone?” The cat has questions. “I’m fucking old. There are medications in tiny bottles. What am I, the Uncle Joon of this narrative? Am I going to get my paw struck in a drain for six fucking hours while the woman in my life dates the wrong person? This is bullshit.”
Stephanie also suffers from an acute case of Zied Envy Disorder, and she’s so inflamed that she’s forced to wear a face mask with a photo of her posing with her favorite child. This doubles as a way to skip relationship and go right into Proud Grandparent mode.
“I’m listening to that YEET Skert song on The TikTok so Ryan and I have something to talk about,” Stephanie explains, googling “zoomers be like” for additional points of reference.
Stephanie lands, and Ryan is waiting for her with balloons and 90DF’s favorite spinning camera person. “I was young enough to still count years in halves when I met Stephanie,” Ryan happily declares, before planting scores of clucking chicken kisses on Thursday’s fiancé.
Newly reunited, Stephanie and Ryan drive a golf cart around Steph’s money and eventually stop at a great place to remind people how successful you are. Then Steph cracks open her suitcase to dramatically display everything Ryan will be selling six days after her departure.
“I would rather have the money than all these gifts,” Ryan reminds us of the foundation of their relationshit. “I think that maybe I might ‘lose’ some of these things soon, if you know what I mean.”
“Everyone says they don’t want underwear for Christmas, but mama knows how to panty up her man!” Steph is triumphant in her sea of boxers.
Then Steph trots out glow in the dark condoms for the four times a night they supposedly bang it out. “This is very smart, because when you get older, it’s harder to find a dick in the dark,” Ryan explains.
Now that the gifting and prophylactics are out of the way, the only thing left to do is go through his phone. This is really an IQ test, to see if he’s stupid enough to save messages from other ladies, when he knows his only source of income will be landing soon. Since Ryan has a whole different phone for all his extracurriculars, he offers to turn off the password protection, so she can reread all her texts that he didn’t respond to whenever she wants. Stephanie sees this as a major development.
“Before, Ryan was really reluctant to let me look at his phone,” she says. “Not sure why any of this is a priority when I suddenly have dick in my life again after a ten month penis drought, and all these condoms on hand to skirt diseases he might have accumulated. I’m not convinced he’s changed, but I’m going to just keep buying stuff until I’m sure.”
Later on they’re prepping for a dinner date, Ryan decked out in his best buff from Surviver he’s been ordered to wrap around his head for Steph’s ethnic experience. He says he likes Stephanie’s dress, and for some reason is helping her get into it instead of out of it. Once seated they agree to order margaritas and lobster, and that’s the extent of their conversation. Ryan tells Stephanie that he knows he needs to earn her trust back, and no matter what he’s going to get to the states. Stephanie says that this is the dude she fell in love with, and we get it. So she busts out the ring that he’s supposed to propose with.
“Did someone say ring?” Calm down, Natalie.
If you’re doubting Steph’s ability to cling on till the end of the season, fret not, because it’s time to reintroduce her second plot point, which is being a cousin fucker, which has consistently rated ‘ew’ in surveys every year since 1954.
“If I don’t do this, reporting on purchases will be my only contribution,”Steph explains. “The producers say hula hooping in magic glasses before injecting myself with youth serum is only funny once, maybe twice if Darcey wasn’t a regular fixture.”
Meanwhile, Mike and Natalie are glowing from the hate-sex they had the night before, and now they’re ready to talk about working on things, without actually working on them. So basically Natalie’s record skips endlessly while Mike’s eyebrow answers.
“Either I am married or I am right. I prefer to be married. And wrong,” Natalie clarifies things. “This insecurity will last full 90 days. Then will be replaced with baby breakdown, of course.”
Mike’s mom is coming, which means free therapy, but Natalie is uneasy, and doesn’t really want to welcome anyone while they’re fighting. But since they’re never not fighting, a peaceful visit would be harder to plan than a COVID flight to Belize.
Mom aka Trish arrrives from Oklahoma, and Mike says he only sees her once a year, when tornado season makes booking airfare unnecessary. Natalie immediately declares she likes mom’s style, because this line worked on Uncle Beau, and Rebecca taught her that in the south the best way to insult someone is with a compliment. Mom and Mike start trading inside jokes, and Natalie is immediately defensive.
“I don’t know what this laughter is, but yes, they are laughing at me,” Natalie says. “All these things reference ring. I do not have ring. It is precious to me. It calls to me, my precious. Have I mention this?”
Mike starts breaking down how to play dead in event of bear attack, so you can get used to the feeling, and while Mike is joking, that’s not going to stop Natalie from demonstrating what happens when you don’t drink caffeine, alcohol, or consume a steady supply of sugar.
“This is not true. I have 40 grams of sugar each year,” Natalie is ready. “Also, I don’t have ring.”
“See?” Mike says, cracking open his sixth beer, which he pours over bacon ice cream. “I’m perfectly calm. She’s having some kind of B12 crash or whatever. I’m leaving my eyebrow behind so she can keep going while I eat the fuck-shit out of this.”
Eager to plant mom in the middle, Natalie tells Trish she thinks Mike is enacting revenge by withholding her ring. 20 minutes later mom agrees and has nearly worked through the duct tape binding her to the chair.
“I’m not obsessive. I am totally able to let go,” Natalie explains, reaching for a drawer to upgrade the duct tape to something Gorilla.
Later on they go out to dinner, which Natalie kicks off by reminding us that silence isn’t awkward to her, because unless you’re talking about her ring she has nothing to say. “I also micromanage Mike’s eating habits,” she suddenly remembers. “I wish you would not eat butter. Air coated bread is much more healthier. Here, you can wave over butter for essence.”
“But butter’s very good for you,” mom keto’s.
“What?” The butter replies.
“Real butter is good for your mind,” mom sciences. “Because of the cow’s memories stored in the udders.”
“That is one interesting,” Natalie agrees. “Have I mention I do not have ring back?”
“I’m starting to sense you want the ring back,” Mom psychics.
Having had more than enough of this shit, mom tells Natalie that orchestrating a test where you return a ring to see if he’ll give it back again is weird, and doesn’t seem to have worked out the way she planned.
“It’s like we’re both hurt about the ring,” Mike Keanus. Natalie looks like she’s going to burst when Mike’s mom suggests setting a tentative date, then they can work towards it and focus on the relationship itself, and not whether the K-1 was a worthy investment.
“I feel like I found a magic button to Mike’s heart. Trish,” Natalie is ready. “You very smart woman. I will buy you car.”
“A card?”
“No. A car.”
“Yep, this is doomed,” mom speaks truth to the producer. “Seriously, how the fuck do these two not ever arrive at any possible solutions? They just repeat the problem over and over. What do they mean when they say ‘keep working on it,’ since they’re not actually working on anything? We’re going to need a COVID-like supply of TP for this shit show.”
The next day Mike is wearing pajama pants in the kitchen, and finally someone understands there’s no point in getting dressed if you’re not leaving. Instead, Mike rocks a pancake flip, and Natalie is understandably amazed, so Mike doesn’t mention that he bathed the pan in butter and poured a full pound bag of sugar into the mix for funzies.
Having agreed to set a date, they bust out a calendar to isolate a number that meets the demands of superstition. “I like number 3,” Natalie says, as they agree to April 3rd. “Because 4+3+2020=11, and 1+1 = 2, plus one ring = 3, and you know what three is? Prime.”
“Holy fucking shit. That’s three words, too.” Mike is into it.
They tell Trish they picked a date, and she’s mellow in her congratulations, because it’s hard to celebrate with two people when you had to stitch the seams of their relationship the night before. Plus, April 3rd is like 37 days before Mother’s Day, which is fucked up. Natalie is fine with a non-church wedding, which is good because Mike isn’t Libby.
“The military just declassified stuff about aliens, so I’m about to be right about a lot of things,” Mike eyebrows. “Also, I’m not doing anything with funny hats unless it happens on Mars.”
Natalie calls her mom to tell her the date, and mom’s happy, because she’s ready to trap Mike in a closet until Beau rides to the rescue if that’s what it takes for these two to marry. After she hangs up the phone Natalie starts crying because she misses her mom. Mike holds her as she cries, and Trish cries and empathizes with her situation, and says it must be very hard to give everything up to live such a different life.
“Thank you for Michael. He’s a really good man.” Natalie feels much more secure, and all of us at home hope they get their shit together since there is a genuine sweetness buried underneath the rubble of their relationship.
Yara is standing next to a wall of Beanie babies, which can only mean she’s purchasing a pregnancy test. She says that when she had her miscarriage, the doctor told her a successful pregnancy would be unlikely. She disappears, and the producers are so in suspense about the outcome that they hover outside the bathroom door, recording her hand washing.
“We could just make this show 90 minutes instead of two hours,” the producers say. “But fuck that. C.R.E.A.M, bitches.”
Yara calls her friend Lena, and holds a pregnancy test up to the phone camera, until Lena tells her to pull it back some since all she sees is a plastic blur. Yep: pregnant, or as they say it in Mexico, pregnant-o.
“That’s right,” Andrew agrees.
“Maybe the test is wrong,” Lena says. “In America they make half of all pregnancy tests positive in advance to confuse the abortion fairy.”
Yara tells Lena that Jovi is going to be back in a few days, and she’ll talk to him about it in person. That few days arrives in the next 30 minutes of show, with Yara taking her nauseated stomach to the airport to pick up Jovi. She mentions that Jovi didn’t believe she was pregnant the last time she had a miscarriage, since he’s a graduate of the Yeah, But Are You Sure It’s Mine? School of Massholes. Eventually he was convinced that biology is still a book he didn’t read, and then he drank enough to eat the book’s pages and forgot all about it.
Yara can’t find him at the airport, and when she calls he claims he’s doing a Darcey in the bathroom and will be out any minute. Turns out he was actually changing into an alcoholic, and greets her with what’s likely his third 9AM drink in hand. This accelerates Yara towards peak ball buster mode, or as she and Jovi call it, foreplay.
“Cut it out, mom,” Jovi whines, covering his drink with his hand. “It’s just soda. Ha, ha, this passes for adulthood to me!”
“Drop away,” Yara writes a soft rock ballad as she tells him to ditch the drink.“Drop away.” A light breeze blows through the airport, her hair drifting over her eyes, as the lighting darkens, a glass breaks, and Slash readies for his guitar solo.
“I’m growing more powerful,” the fetus declares, sucking his mother’s life force through his stomach straw. “Hmmm yummy. I think I’m going to make her crave donuts slathered in lard.”
“Donuts slathered in lard, you say?” Mike adds another item to his This Week’s Menu magnetic white board.
90DF: The World’s Toughest Prisons is ready to take us back to Julia, who has been held without bail for just 20 days. That’s right, kids: all these parent meetings, forced dinners, and impatience with failure to perform 5AM farm labor has happened in 20 days.
“See? This is why I drink at 9AM,” Jovi has answers.
“You know we don’t have cocktails until we’ve warmed the kitchen crickets in our mouths,” dad is appalled. “This is not a joke. This is my house. There are rules.”
“Don’t even live with you, dude,” Jovi loses track of his plastic balancing straw. “This is the last time I take pre-flight peyote.”
After another morning of farm work, Julia calls her dad. He asks why she hasn’t called, and Julia says she’s only allowed access to her phone when she has enough stars on the chore chart, and even then she has to know the secret password, which can only be found inside her bedroom’s mystery paint buckets.
“As the head of your future family...” Julia’s dad begins.
“Did someone say head?” Brandon unzips his pants and times out Pokémon Go.
“...he needs to resolve this.”
“Oh. Never mind,” Pokémon Go is a go.
Julia knows Brandon isn’t even the head of his own body, let alone their family, so she’s going to have to draw a line, and that line is that she’s not enduring marathon disappointed lectures and sneaking into his bedroom ever again.
“I hate. I hate this place,” Julia says, finding the most important words in the English language. “It’s dirty. I look like pig. I hate you now, Brandon.” Brandon wants to like, have a work day and talk about this later. Julia wants to hash it out between hobo spider sprays.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with taking care of a few cute animals,” Brandon manages to be dismissive and patronizing, while forgetting that Julia has already met the family’s body disposal pigs.
Later he comes home and Julia is prepared to read him, completely. “It’s not as hard as you’re making it out to be,” Brandon resumes readily dismisses her feelings. “Let me say cute animals again, and act like there’s not apparently too many of them for a family to manage without imported help.”
Brandon is a bit overwhelmed by Julia’s insistence that they move out, but he’s secretly over the nonstop farm demands too, and says he’ll tell his parents they’re leaving, because he doesn’t want to lose Julia.
Speaking of prison, newly freed Amira is finally headed back to France, while Andrew’s worst resort day ever sallies forth. Through all of this he still doesn’t seem to have noticed she’s recovering from a truly traumatic experience, and maybe he should take his ass to France to comfort her. Or, you know, call her.
Amira’s father has been worried sick, and when Amira finally lands, COVID be damned, dude is hugging his daughter.
“SIX FEET!” A stranger yells, walking by with their nose exposed.
Amira feels guilty because her father suffered because of her, which is the most sincerely sweet family moment on this show since Kyle and Noon’s season. She tells dad that they took her passport, phone, and watch, and basically locked her up for three days. Then they told her she was being rejected for no passport...in an envelope that included her passport. This detail is how you know this story is 100% true.
“We figured she could find it on the way to the airport,” Mexico explains. “Hey, at least the people we put in cages are adults.”
“Was it three days?” Andrew is confused. “Huh. Time flies, I guess!”
Amira is beginning to piece together the depth of Andrew’s selfishness, and she says that she wishes Andrew would have looked for her while she was detained.
“I did!” Andrew insists, flipping through the room service menu. “I even called America and was all, dude you’ve got to help us. But you know Trump’s a busy man, and he can’t hear us over the wall, let alone speak Mexico.”
No one feels more keenly aware of Andrew’s shortcomings than Amira’s father, who figured out his daughter was in trouble long before Andrew did. Then he lost sleep, looked, and remembered to express concern when she was finally free.
“I think he’s not the right man for you,” dad is okay with playing Captain Obvious if the situation demands it. “However, this television exposure should at least guarantee than Tom from London hits on you, aggressively.”
This leads Amira to further fret that she’s also going to have to repair Andrew’s relationship with her father, which is unlikely, since he used their debut emergency phone call to compliment dad’s shirt choice.
Andrew says that now that he knows Amira’s safe, he can do a little self care and stop suffering over a cheeseburger in the lounge. When Amira calls, he’s the portrait of concern. “It’s very urgent that we get married,” he says, removing the umbrella and bouquet of pineapple from his drink. “But since I’m here, I’m going to do a little four-wheeling and maybe launch myself off a water slide. I’m totally going to demand to get on a plane without a face mask on the way home, after I talk you into meeting me in a Turkish prison.”
Amira is hurt that he’s vacationing without her, and carrying on like nothing even happened, and feels like there’s already no room for her to open up about what happened to her. So she hangs up on him, and for some reason the rest of us are still forced to hear his voice, when we’d be okay with the screen just going black, and maybe the sound of him falling over travel guides.
NEXT TIME: Jovi still doesn’t understand how sex works, Mike doesn’t understand how a K-1 works, Andrew doesn’t understand how other people work, Tarik and Hazel still call polyamory “being bisexual,” Brandon’s parents attempt to bully him into remaining a toddler, and Stephanie admits to Ryan that she’s a cousin fucker.
Thank you, Patreon Supporters!

• SHIPPING: Starts at $3.50 and goes up depending on weight and location. US only, please! I can ship internationally and bubble wrap the heck out of it, but at cost and at your own risk as I'm pretty sure USPS international doesn't include insurance. Please make sure your address in PayPal is correct as this will be the one I ship to. :) *PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR ZIP CODE WITH YOUR PAYPAL EMAIL WHEN PMING ME TO PURCHASE FOR MOST ACCURATE SHIPPING COST.\*
• *Paypal G&S only, please. I will send you an invoice after you provide me with your paypal email via DM. Please keep all pricing discussion to the comments, as per the rules. Smoke-free home. I have multiple cats + a dog, but my makeup is stored in my vanity.
• If you change your mind, please just let me know rather than ghosting me. Invoices due upon receipt. I would prefer not to hold items. I work 8-5 during the week so please be patient with me as far as responses go during those times and late at night. (I am in EST time zone.)
• All items are from my personal collection. I am not looking to swap at this time. I try my best to price fairly so please do not lowball me :)

Eyes:

• Ace Beaute single glimmer eyeshadows, all BNNU, $3 each:

1. Cotton Candy 1 2
2. French Vanilla 1 2
3. Huckleberry 1 2
4. Iced Latte 1 2

• Alamar Cosmetics "Reina Del Caribe Vol 1" eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $7 1 2 3
• Anastasia Beverly Hills Mini Pro Pigment 1 eyeshadow palette - lightly used - $20 1 2
• Anastasia Beverly Hills Prism eyeshadow palette, moderate usage - $22 1 2 3
• BECCA Limited Edition "Volcano Goddess" palette - few shades swatched, otherwise new - $20 1 2
• Butter London "Natural Goddess" eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $8 1 2
• Colourpop Candy Castle eyeshadow palette - swatched - $13 1 2 3
• Colourpop Je Ne Sais Quois super shock shadow quad; includes un, deux, trois, quatre - swatched - $25 1 2 3
• Colourpop Kaepop super shock shadow quad; includes beverly, wilshire, sunset blvd and crenshaw - swatched - $25 12
• Colourpop Double Entendre eyeshadow palette - used once - $12 1 2
• Colourpop "Pretty Much" mini pigment palette, one shade repressed, used once - $5 1 2 3
• Colourpop "I Think I Love You" palette, used once - $12 1 2
• Colourpop x CoffeeBreakWithDani Metamorphosis super shock shadow quad - BRAND NEW. Includes shadows Kindness, Hope, Bravery and Strength - $35 1 2 3 4
• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow single (LE) in "Puppy Love" - BNNU - $8 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow single (LE) in "Tink" - used 1x - $4 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow singles, all BNNU - $6 each

1. One by One 1 2
2. Flipper 1 2
3. To-A-T 1 2
4. 8-Track 1 2
5. Hot Tamale 1 2
6. Babykins 1 2
7. Melrose 1 2
8. High Rise 1 2
9. Noontide 1 2

• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow single (LE) in "90210" - used 2x - $3 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow single (LE) in "Girl Crush" - used 1x - $4 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow single in "Bandit" - used a few times - $2 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow single (LE) in "One & Done" - used 1x - $4 1 2
• Dominique Cosmetics "Celestial Thunder" eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $8 1 2
• Dose of Colors Baked Browns eyeshadow palette - 1x - $15 1 2 3
• Eylure Halloween lashes in style "Carnival" - $3
• Eylure Halloween lashes in style "CatFace" - $3
• Guerlain Fard Indien Mineral eyeshadow in Jungle Dust - 50% used - $2 1 2
• Hourglass Modernist Atmosphere palette - used 1x - $25 1 2 3
• Huda Beauty Ruby Obsessions - BNNU - $20 12
• Huda Beauty Neon Green Obsessions - used 1x - $20 1 2 3
• Kat Von D "I Am Divine" eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $30 1 2 3
• Kat Von D "Metal Matte" eyeshadow palette. Outside is a lil faded, shadows are in almost immaculate condition. - $40 1 2 3
• Kat Von D "Pastel Goth" eyeshadow palette - swatched - $40 1 2 3
• Kat Von D "Saint & Sinner" eyeshadow palette - used once, most shades untouched- $50 1 2 3
• Lancôme single eyeshadow in "Haute Couture" - BNNU - $7 1 2
• LORAC Mega Pro 4 (LE) - few shades swatched otherwise new - $30 1 2 3
• Melt Cosmetics Amor Eterno Vida eyeshadow palette - swatched - $75firm 1 2
• Morphe 15B Brunch Babe Artistry eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $12 1 2 3
• Morphe 35O eyeshadow palette, used 2-3x lightly - $12 1 2 3
• Morphe x Jeffree Star Artistry palette - used very lightly, 1x or 2x - $20 1 2 3
• Natasha Denona Mini Sunset palette - used once - $18 1 2 3
• Natasha Denona Peak palette - BNNU - $20 1 2 3
• PUR Cosmetics Festival palette - BNNU - $10
• Tarte x Graveyard Girl "Swamp Queen" LE cheek + eye palette, used 2x, original brush included - $30 1 2 3
• Tarte Rainforest of the Sea II eyeshadow palette - used 1x - $16 1 2 3
• Tarte Make Believe in Yourself eyeshadow palette - swatched - $16 1 2
• Tarte Maneater Mascara - BNIB - $12
• Tarte "Sizzle" eyeshadow palette, missing one shade, other shades lightly used - $10 1 2 3 4
• Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette - lightly used, I did drop this and chip a few shadows though :( - $12 1 2 3
• Too Faced Sugar Peach wet & dry Face and Eye palette - swatched - $28 1 2 3
• Too Faced PB&J eyeshadow palette - used once - $15 1 2 3
• Violet Voss Holy Grail palette - swatched - $30 1 2 3
• Viseart Neutral Mattes 01 eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $45 1 2
• Viseart Neutral Mattes Milieu eyeshadow palette - BNNU - $45 1 2 3

Lips:

• Adesse Hi Definition Liquid Lipstick in "Haute Cocoa" - BNNU - $4
• Alamar "Mother of Pearl" lip gloss in "Sirenita" - BNNU - $4 1 2
• Anastasia Beverly Hills lipstick in "Latte" - BNNU - $10 1 2
• Anastasia Beverly Hills liquid lipstick in "Craft" - used 1x - $4 1 2
• APPEAL Holographic lip gloss - BNNU - $3
• Colourpop x Hello Kitty Ultra Glossy Lip in "K.T." - BNNU - $5
• Florence by Mills lip gloss in Modern Mills - swatched - $6
• ICONIC London Lip Plumping Gloss - BNNU - $6 1 2
• Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lip in "Blow Pony" - BNIB - $13 1
• Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lip in "Mistletoe" - BNIB - $13 12
• KAB Cosmetics - BNIB lip gloss and lip liner set in "Charming" - $12
• Kylie Cosmetics Liquid Lip in "Red Velvet" - swatched - $10
• LORAC Pro Matte Lip Color in "Dusty Plum" - BNNU - $6
• MAC "Velvet Teddy" matte lipstick - BNIB - $12
• MAC "Cosmo: Amplified" lipstick - used 1x - $6 1 2
• Too Faced High Shine Sparkling Lip Gloss in "Pretty Penny" - BNNU - $7

Face/Cheeks:

• Alamar Blush trio in "failight" - BNNU - $8 1 2 3
• Anastasia Beverly Hills creme contour kit in FaiLight - used 1x - $20 1 2
• Anastasia Beverly Hills "Dream" GlowKit - used a handful of times - $20 1 2 3
• Anastasia Beverly Hills "Aurora" GlowKit - BNNU, two shades came shattered and I repressed. $10 1 2
• Anastasia Beverly Hills loose highlighter in So Hollywood - BNNU - $10 1 2 3
• Anastasia Beverly Hills loose highlighter in Sunset Aura - BNNU - $10 1 2 3
• BareMinerals BarePro Performance Foundation in Fair 01 - used once - $25 1 2
• BareMinerals GenNude blush in "Strike a Rose" - used 5x - $8 1 2
• BareMinerals GenNude blush in "Pink Me Up" - used 5x - $8 12
• Benefit Hoola Lite bronzer, full size - BNNU - $20 1 2
• Benefit Dandelion blush, full size - used once with separate brush - plastic still in place! - $18 123 4
• Bobbi Brown highlighter in "Pink Glow" - full size - used 2x - $20 12
• Ciate Marbled Light Illuminating Blush in "Burnt" - BNNU $8 1 2 3
• Colourpop 6-Pan Highlighting Palette "Gimme More" - swatched - $15 1 2 3
• Colourpop 6-Pan Highlighting Palette "In-nude-endo" - swatched - $15 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Cheek highlighter in "Might Be" used once or twice - $6 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Cheek highlighter in "Parasol" used handful of times - $6 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Cheek highlighter in "Double Dip" used once or twice - $6 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Cheek highlighter in "Strapped" swatched - $10 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Cheek TieDye highlighter in "Whipped" swatched - $12 1 2
• Colourpop Super Shock Cheek highlighter in "Electric Slide" - BNIB - $9 12
• COVERFX Glitter Drops in "Nova" - BNNU - $15 1 2
• COVERFX Perfector Face Palette - medium/deep - BNNU - $20 1 2 3
• Farsali Jellybeam Highlight in "Glow Up" - Used once or twice - $8 1 2 3
• Fenty Cheeks Out cream blush in "Daquiri Dip" - swatched - $12 1 2
• Fenty Killawatt Foil Freestyle Highlighter in "Sand Castle & Mint'd Mojito" - BNIB - $18 1 2
• Jeffree Star Extreme Frost in "Choking on Ice" - BNIB - $45 1 23
• Jeffree Star Skin Frost in "Peach Goddess" - used 2x - $18 1 2
• Jeffree Star Skin Frost in "Mint Condition" - swatched - $18 1 2
• Kat Von D "Alchemist" highlighting palette - swatched - $12 1 23
• Kat Von D "Fetish" blush and highlighter palette - used 2x - $30 1 2 3
• Laura Geller Baked Blush and Brighten in "Tropic Hues" - BNNU - $8 1 2 3
• NARS blush in "Savage" - was BNIB until I knicked it with my nail in two spots/tried to fix it. - $20 1 2
• NARS dual intensity blush in "Adoration" - used 3x - $12 1 2 3
• NARS limited edition "Orgasm Infatuation" palette - used 2x - $40 1 2 3
• Pretty Vulgar Ultra Reflective Highlighting Powder in "Shimmering Swan" swatched - $8 1 2
• PUR Cosmetics Bronze and Brighten face palette - BNNU - $8 1 2 3
• PUR Cosmetics Sculptor contour palette - swatched - $10 1 2
• RealHer Blush Trio palette - BNNU - $8
• Stila Glitter and Glow Highlighter in "Kitten" - BNNU - $15 1 2 3
• Stila Hide and Chic foundation in shade "Light/Medium 2" - used one pump - $20 1 2
• Stila "Shine Bright" Heaven's Dew highlighter palette - brand new but middle shade touched inside of lid. $20 1 2 3
• Studio Makeup Loose Luminous Blush - used once, I didn't shut the twist lid that keeps it from piling up in the container by accident so warning: there is a good amount sitting on top of the plastic within the container - $5 1 2
• Tarte Tarteist Pro Glow liquid highlighter in "Exposed" - BNIB - $8
• Too Faced Frosted Fruits highlighter stick in Pink Lemonade - swatched - $10 1 2
• Urban Decay Elements Space Powder - BNNU - $9 1 2 3
• Violet Voss highlight trio, used a handful of times, darkest shade has a chip out of it - $8 1 2 3
• Wander Beauty Glow Ahead Illuminating Facial Oil - used 1x - $10
• Wet N Wild Geometric Highlighting Powder in "Desert Exploration" swatched - $2 1 2
• Wet N Wild highlighting powder, not sure of shade name - used 1x - $2 1 2
• Wet N Wild highlighting palette - swatched - $5 1 2

Skincare/Primer:

• Bath and Body Works lotion in Japanese Cherry Blossom, full size - BNNU - $6
• Cosmedix Facial Roller - BNIB - $15
• Dr. Brandt Luminizer Primer - Used 1x - $8 1 2
• Dr. Brandt PoreDermabrasion pore perfecting exfoliator, 2oz - used once - $10 1
• Elemis Superfood Vital Veggie Mask - BNNU - $15 1 2
• Farmacy Green Clean Makeup Removing Cleansing Balm 1.7oz - BNNU - $12
• Farmacy Clean Bee Facial Cleanser, 3.4 fl oz - used once - $10 1 2
• fresh Soy Makeup Cleanser 150ml/5.1oz BNNU - $15
• Hourglass Ambient Light Correcting Primer in Mood Light - BNIB - $35 1
• Measurable Difference Coconut Oil 4fl oz - BNNU - $9 1 2 3
• Too Faced Glow Job diamond glitter peel-off face mask - used once with separate spatula - $10 1 2 3
• Too Faced Primed and Peachy primer, about 50% left - $10 1 2
• TouchInSol No Poreblem Prime Essence - BNIB - $10
• Victoria's Secret petal scrub in "Bombshell" scent - used once - $6 1 2
• Wander Beauty Lift Off Purifying and Brightening Peel Off Mask - swatched - $8 1 2

ETC:

• Marble print AOA large magnetic z palette - BNNU - $4 1 2
• Makeup Print AOA large magnetic z palette - BNNU - $4 1 2
• Unicorn Print AOA large magnetic z palette - BNNU - $4 1 2
• Overtone Pastel Red conditioner (regular size 8oz + 2oz travel size) - selling as a bundle only - I think the big one is new, but we'll say each used 1x. - $20 1 2
• Paul Mitchell Color Protect Reconstructive Treatment - BNNU - $12
• Philosophy Body Wash/Shampoo/Conditioner in "Christmas Cookie" 16oz - BNNU - $13
• IGK Mistress Hydrating Hair Balm - BNNU - $15
• Color-Your-Own-Ipsy-Bag with the mini markers included. $1
• Briogeo Rosarco Milk Blowdry Protectant sample size - BNNU $1
• Japanese Cherry Blossom Bath and Body Works bath fizzy BNNU $1.50

Free with purchase:

• Ulta Beauty Highlighting Stick - BNNU
• Juvia's Place NIA eyeshadow single - BNNU
• Bumble & Bumble "Don't Blow It" fine hair styler sample
• Manna Kadar blush mini in "Paradise"
• Nyx Whipped Lip & Cheek mini in Pink Cloud
• Pacifica Mini Eyeshadow palette in Island Life BNNU
• Wet N' Wild contour brush, BNNU
• Wet N' Wild Smoky Liner Eyeshadow brush, BNNU
• Pearl & Peach sheet face mask
• NYX mini matte lip cream in shade "cairo"
• NOTS Once Finishing Cream sample
• AHAVA purifying mud mask sample
• Maybelline brow pencil twin pack in "blonde"
• Tarte Foundation Sample Card
• NuPore Beauty Booster Sheet Face Mask

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 8
I have a hard wood safe filled with cursed VHS tapes that are to never be watched by anyone, ever. Only because I have watched them and have faced and or witnessed the consequences. This post is a warning for the following VHS tape known as “Further Void Layer Exploration Funding”. I doubt there would be any copies, but just in case there are more, read this.
…
This tape was given to me by a Magician named Carthen. I was relaxing at home when I heard a knock on my door. I opened it and a little light brown eyeball stood there on two tiny legs, wearing a satchel and a little postman-like hat. He waved at me, then reached into his bag and pulled out a tape and a note. I took them from him, then he waved and went on his way.
The note read as such:
“Hello Vallen (that is my name, now you know), my name is Carthen. I am what you call a Magician. I have learned of your efforts to educate people on cursed tapes and have decided to send you one that I have found on my journeys. It is a level 2, based on your danger rating. I won’t write too much about it, because I want you to experience it yourself with your watch party. You should be safe, but I do apologize if anything bad does happen. If I find any more tapes, I will be sure to send them your way.
Your friend, Carthen.”
The tape itself is packaged much like Tubes Demonstration 1 was. It was in a black plastic case covered in dust and inside the tape was labeled “Further Void Layer Exploration Funding”. The run time is about 7 minutes. It does not need to be contained, but if you desire to, keep it in a wooden box with no metal hinges or locks (metal only amplifies the energy of the tape). And Finally, it has a danger level of 2 (See part 1 for the danger guide on cursed VHS tapes).
I’m back with the new watch party: Debby, the Magician, taking the place of my watch partner and Story on the killswitch. I placed the tape in and pressed play.
It started with a title card with a location of somewhere in Russia and a date of May 1st 1997. It also had a warning about actions that would be taken against unauthorized viewers of the tape, then it started. It suddenly cut to a man who had just pressed play on the camera he was using. It showed him sitting in a chair with a small control panel behind him and a large window that looked out into a dark void.
“Hello, my name is Carl Phisher,” he said, pushing up the glasses on his face. He wore a green sweater with a red flannel underneath poking out the top of it. “I am a member of the Darkmoth Corporation in charge of monitoring outpost 07 of the Void Layer. This video will highlight some of the activity of the Void Layer for review by the head of the committee in charge of exploring, documenting, and pinpointing the origins of the Void Layer. As you know, the Void Layer is a segment of the Earth's crust that was discovered when the Russians drilled the Kola Superdeep Borehole. Once they broke into it, operations ceased and control was handed over to the Darkmoth Corporation. We still have yet to understand what the Void Layer is or why it is here and we are nowhere near close to getting those answers, but hopefully this video should prove that it is still worth attention and further funding for exploration.” The video then cuts to another angle of the large window with Carl sitting in front of the control panel from the previous shot.
“Here is what we know about the Void Layer as of this recording. It is a shifting anomalous cavity that produces random entities that reflect objects, places and people on the surface. Most of them are random with seemingly no reason to generate in the first place. They eventually fade away and are never seen again. There are only a handful of recurring anomalies, with only one posing a threat on a very minimal level.” Carl pressed a few buttons on the panel, then flipped a switch which turned on lights that shined into the void. What popped up was a telephone pole with several broken wires hanging off of it and one wire that trailed off further into the darkness, beyond what the lights could see.
“This was the first recurring anomaly that we recorded. It is a telephone pole that looks as if it has been there for a long time as there is visible wear on the body and degradation of the wires. However, we have managed to get a positive charge from the dangling wires. We got authorization to send a team of two to follow the one remaining wire that seems to lead somewhere, but the team lost contact with us three hours into their journey and have not been recovered since. They did not report any other telephone poles, but did confirm that the wire keeps going.” All of the sudden, the sound of a horn began to emit from somewhere above the outpost. Carl stopped talking and listened for a second, flipping a few different switches on the panel, then pulled over a TV on a rolling stand, turned it on, and watched out the window.
The sound grew louder until a semi truck with a trailer attached could be seen maybe 50 feet away from the window, falling past and into the darkness below. The headlights of the truck shined bright, until it disappeared into the void. Carl sat there for a second with a blank expression on his face until he turned towards the camera.
“Well… there is usually ground there…” he said. The footage cuts to another shot of Carl in front of the TV he pulled over.
“What you saw earlier was captured on a high speed camera mounted on the outside of the outpost,” he said, taking a remote from the stand and began turning a knob. As he turned it, the truck began to fall into frame. The front of the cab was facing the camera and something looked off with the windows. He zoomed into the frame and waited for the image to become more clear. Once it focused, you could see a fleshy mass behind the windshield with a large smiling mouth and two large eyes, one bigger than the other one.
“As you can see, a large semi truck had manifested from somewhere above and had fallen to an immeasurable depth that exceeds the spatial limits that we have recorded in the past of the surrounding area. You can also see that there is something filling up the cab of the semi. We can not determine what is filling it, but it seems to enjoy whatever is going on in this frame.” He let it sit on that frame for a while before turning off the TV. The camera then cuts again to Carl sitting at the control panel with a wide angle of the window.
“That anomaly is a perfect example of the randomness in the variety of what occurs in the Void Layer. The truck itself looked to be a mid 80’s Mack truck with an American license plate. We are in the process of seeing if that plate correlates to a real world plate.” The camera then cuts again to Carl, but he is wearing different clothes and his hair is a little longer. The window is off to the side of the shot as he looks to be hiding just underneath it. He moves the camera towards the window as it pans to a woman standing next to the telephone pole, a head taller than it.
She is wearing a black summer dress, her hair is white and her eyes are black. Her skin is weirdly translucent with black veins running through her body. Her feet are cut off. She just kinda floats there and her eyes look like they are twitching, but it is hard to tell. Carl begins to talk quietly from his hiding spot just off camera.
“This is our recurring anomaly I talked about that poses a minimal threat. We call her Big Jenny. For reference, the telephone pole is normal sized. She usually doesn’t get any closer, but sometimes she gets right up close to the glass. She has cracked it on one occasion and we had to replace it. It is random when she will show up and most of the time we will go into lockdown mode just to be safe. The longest time on record we have of her manifesting is four hours, twenty three minutes and forty nine seconds.”
“As we speak, I am using the high speed camera to monitor her movements and assess her actions to decide if we need to go into full lockdown or not. As previously stated, she does not usually get any closer, but she will train her attention onto anyone standing in front of the window. You will know when she is looking at you as bright white pupils will glow from within her eyes. I will now demonstrate.” You can hear Carl put down the remote and stand up from his hiding spot. You can see his reflection in the window. Big Jenny’s eyes suddenly start glowing, then the glow narrows to look like pupils as she focuses in on him.
“It is unclear what she is doing when she is looking at someone, but she shows the ability to copy most motions she sees, which could also mean she has some level of intelligence. I will now demonstrate,” he said as he began waving his hand at her. When he stopped, Big Jenny slowly raised her hand and waved back, then put it down. Her eyes began to twitch in different directions rapidly, and her head started violently shaking.
“Don’t be alarmed, this is normal,” Carl said. She raised her hands and placed them on her head as it kept shaking. The sound of hundreds of voices being heard through an extremely compressed audio file screamed out of her mouth as she seemed to levitate into the air. Her body began separating itself until it quickly faded into nothing. The screams echoed for a few seconds.
“That is what happens when she disappears. We were concerned the first couple times, but there seems to be no residual effects after she vanishes.” The tape cuts again to Carl sitting in front of the control panel.
“We were able to get a match on the license plate of that semi truck to an identical one that went missing traveling through northern Nevada, which leads to all new theories as to what the manifestations in the Void Layer are. It is a worthy cause to further the funding of this project; we have begun to gather more information that could help us discover what this place is. Thank you for your time and consideration.” The tape then cuts off there.
“That tape wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Debby said.
“They’re not always super dangerous,” I said.
“Is it safe then? Can I watch it too?” Story asked. I brought him in and rewound the tape, then let him watch it. He was fascinated by it.
“So there’s a layer in the Earth’s crust where things manifest in a void…? I feel like that shouldn’t surprise me, but it does…” he said with a puzzled look on his face.
That night, I had the strangest dream that I was in Carl’s place inside of the outpost at the Void Layer. Big Jenny was standing outside of it, right in front of the glass, just staring at me. I couldn’t move... all I could do was stare at her. I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder and I was able to move again. I looked over to see a very disheveled looking Carl staring back at me.
“You shouldn’t be here, nor should your friends,” he said, looking behind me. I turned to look and saw Story and Debby standing there, confused. “This is my burden to bear, and I will bear it alone.” I suddenly woke up in a cold sweat, terrified. I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face, then went to the kitchen where I saw Debby making some tea. She’s been living with me for the past couple days, and if you’re wondering how she is able to interact with things in my kitchen? Well somehow being in the same place for long enough with a Magician, allows them to interact with things in that area without supervision. I’m still trying to figure out how the Black Magic Virus works.
“I thought you didn’t need to eat or drink,” I said as I pulled a stool up to the counter.
“I don’t need to, but I can,” she said, putting a cup in front of me.
“Did you have the dream too?” she asked, taking a sip of her tea. I nodded yes. “What do you think that was?”
“I don’t know. Maybe something happened with him and Big Jenny and they’re both stuck there…” I said, taking a sip.
“Do you think we’re safe?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I guess if we fall asleep and we don’t show up there again, then we might be fine,” I said.
“What did Carl mean by his burden to carry?” she asked.
“Debby, I don’t know. That’s the problem with a lot of these tapes, you typically come out with more questions than answers,” I said, taking another sip of tea.
“Well a Magician gave you this tape, right? Why don’t we ask him?” she said.
“If I had a way to do so, I would, but there was no address on the tape or note, and all I have is a name. You are more than welcome to go searching yourself for him or her or it, or whatever Carthen is, but I say that if we go to bed over the next couple of nights and nothing happens, we leave it be. Most of the time, there’s nothing we can do anyway,” I said. There was a long period of silence as we sat there, drinking our tea.
“I just feel bad for the guy… you know?” she said.
“Yeah…” I said, letting out a sigh.
“Do you ever feel guilty for the people you watch in the tapes?” she asked. I sat there, staring down at my cup.
“Sometimes… I do, sometimes. The first real dangerous tape we ever experienced was called Traveling Up the Pipeline, and it was a guy just trying to escape a cave he was trapped in. Turns out, the cave was connected to my previous watch partner's body. We had to pull him out of her mouth and it took a good minute just to get him out. When he finally got out, we had to stop his camera to keep other things from getting out, and in doing so, he disappeared, leaving only his camera on the ground. I tried watching the tape back, but it was blank… That man was just trying to escape, and we couldn’t save him. Hell, he may have already been dead, but that doesn’t stop it from haunting my mind.” The room went silent again as we both stared at our tea. I’m not sure how much time passed, but eventually Debby got up and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“If you ever need to talk about anything, I’m right here,” she said, before walking back to her room.
…
It’s been a couple days since we watched the tape and I’ve watched a few more times to test something. Every night after watching the tape, I no longer have that dream. Carl must have done something to keep us from getting stuck there. Story had also experienced the same dream, but hasn’t since the first night. Debby has tried to ask around about Carthen, but she hasn’t gotten anywhere yet. Story hasn’t found anything on Ashlyn either, but he’s still looking. My previous watch partner is still on break... at this point I’m not sure if she will come back, but I don’t blame her. My friend in the hospital is making a good recovery and should be discharged by next week, but he will need another week or two to take it easy. Also, he said it was okay to use his name: he is called Scott.
Anyway, if anyone has any cursed tapes that they want to get rid of, feel free to message me, I will gladly take them off of your hands.

I was bumming myself out with the tough hand of COVID at the moment, weak paying job and eating packaged food. Last night my partner learned how to make pan fry bread (its flour and water), eliminating so much plastic garbage and saving us $3 by not purchasing it. I cried. We won for a moment and that'll keep me going.
why I m poor: I am poor because I have lived my life with mental illness. I have been suicidal since I was young and lived like I was gonna die tomorrow. This is a self fulfilling prophecy of believing i am a bag of trash. I spent a year before COVID learning how to manage ADHD, BIPOLAR, BPD... all diagnosis that were thrown at a wall and seeing which treatment sticks. Everything that I learned to cope in that year was thrown out the window as isolation regulations were put into action. The positives are I am experience rich and because I believe I am a bag o trash (Im working on rewiring this, its just honest core belief rn). So I finally went on social support of $700 that only covers my rent. My growing credit card debt is at $2000 with not a lot of hope in site. I make candles to sell but it is a slow operation and I have no more ressources and am about to be homeless again. I Support addictions recovery by offering a yoga session a week where I make $10 from the organisation. Its pretty sad compensation but the rewards are huge and help me put value in my life. So that is how I got here.

Welcome to another recrap of 90 Day Fiancé, where we learn all the things money can buy, like denial, a resort vacation for one, unpaid slave labor, and nonrefundable mid-plague airfare.
COVID-19 has finally decided to stop inconveniencing Stephanie, so she’s back to enjoying her first high school relationship and pondering which hula hoop to pack. It might take an extra suitcase, since Steph’s been shopping for Ryan since before they met.
“I have too much money, and instead of giving to charities, I buy affection,” she explains. “Affection has been around WAY longer than Bitcoin, you know. This is a little watch for the big watches to wear. It cost $3500. And this is a tiny pair of pants for gnomes that’s been stitched by other gnomes that live inside of watches. They cost Blair dollars, and if you can’t figure out what that is, you can’t afford gnome pants.”
Stephanie’s also bringing her mother’s ring for the fabled proposal she’s orchestrated in advance, and based upon their last telephone doom spiral, she knows this is exactly as smart as cramming said treasure into a checked suitcase.
“Time out: Who the fuck is taking care of me, now that the food lady is gone?” The cat has questions. “I’m fucking old. There are medications in tiny bottles. What am I, the Uncle Joon of this narrative? Am I going to get my paw struck in a drain for six fucking hours while the woman in my life dates the wrong person? This is bullshit.”
Stephanie also suffers from an acute case of Zied Envy Disorder, and she’s so inflamed that she’s forced to wear a face mask with a photo of her posing with her favorite child. This doubles as a way to skip relationship and go right into Proud Grandparent mode.
“I’m listening to that YEET Skert song on The TikTok so Ryan and I have something to talk about,” Stephanie explains, googling “zoomers be like” for additional points of reference.
Stephanie lands, and Ryan is waiting for her with balloons and 90DF’s favorite spinning camera person. “I was young enough to still count years in halves when I met Stephanie,” Ryan happily declares, before planting scores of clucking chicken kisses on Thursday’s fiancé.
Newly reunited, Stephanie and Ryan drive a golf cart around Steph’s money and eventually stop at a great place to remind people how successful you are. Then Steph cracks open her suitcase to dramatically display everything Ryan will be selling six days after her departure.
“I would rather have the money than all these gifts,” Ryan reminds us of the foundation of their relationshit. “I think that maybe I might ‘lose’ some of these things soon, if you know what I mean.”
“Everyone says they don’t want underwear for Christmas, but mama knows how to panty up her man!” Steph is triumphant in her sea of boxers.
Then Steph trots out glow in the dark condoms for the four times a night they supposedly bang it out. “This is very smart, because when you get older, it’s harder to find a dick in the dark,” Ryan explains.
Now that the gifting and prophylactics are out of the way, the only thing left to do is go through his phone. This is really an IQ test, to see if he’s stupid enough to save messages from other ladies, when he knows his only source of income will be landing soon. Since Ryan has a whole different phone for all his extracurriculars, he offers to turn off the password protection, so she can reread all her texts that he didn’t respond to whenever she wants. Stephanie sees this as a major development.
“Before, Ryan was really reluctant to let me look at his phone,” she says. “Not sure why any of this is a priority when I suddenly have dick in my life again after a ten month penis drought, and all these condoms on hand to skirt diseases he might have accumulated. I’m not convinced he’s changed, but I’m going to just keep buying stuff until I’m sure.”
Later on they’re prepping for a dinner date, Ryan decked out in his best buff from Surviver he’s been ordered to wrap around his head for Steph’s ethnic experience. He says he likes Stephanie’s dress, and for some reason is helping her get into it instead of out of it. Once seated they agree to order margaritas and lobster, and that’s the extent of their conversation. Ryan tells Stephanie that he knows he needs to earn her trust back, and no matter what he’s going to get to the states. Stephanie says that this is the dude she fell in love with, and we get it. So she busts out the ring that he’s supposed to propose with.
“Did someone say ring?” Calm down, Natalie.
If you’re doubting Steph’s ability to cling on till the end of the season, fret not, because it’s time to reintroduce her second plot point, which is being a cousin fucker, which has consistently rated ‘ew’ in surveys every year since 1954.
“If I don’t do this, reporting on purchases will be my only contribution,”Steph explains. “The producers say hula hooping in magic glasses before injecting myself with youth serum is only funny once, maybe twice if Darcey wasn’t a regular fixture.”
Meanwhile, Mike and Natalie are glowing from the hate-sex they had the night before, and now they’re ready to talk about working on things, without actually working on them. So basically Natalie’s record skips endlessly while Mike’s eyebrow answers.
“Either I am married or I am right. I prefer to be married. And wrong,” Natalie clarifies things. “This insecurity will last full 90 days. Then will be replaced with baby breakdown, of course.”
Mike’s mom is coming, which means free therapy, but Natalie is uneasy, and doesn’t really want to welcome anyone while they’re fighting. But since they’re never not fighting, a peaceful visit would be harder to plan than a COVID flight to Belize.
Mom aka Trish arrrives from Oklahoma, and Mike says he only sees her once a year, when tornado season makes booking airfare unnecessary. Natalie immediately declares she likes mom’s style, because this line worked on Uncle Beau, and Rebecca taught her that in the south the best way to insult someone is with a compliment. Mom and Mike start trading inside jokes, and Natalie is immediately defensive.
“I don’t know what this laughter is, but yes, they are laughing at me,” Natalie says. “All these things reference ring. I do not have ring. It is precious to me. It calls to me, my precious. Have I mention this?”
Mike starts breaking down how to play dead in event of bear attack, so you can get used to the feeling, and while Mike is joking, that’s not going to stop Natalie from demonstrating what happens when you don’t drink caffeine, alcohol, or consume a steady supply of sugar.
“This is not true. I have 40 grams of sugar each year,” Natalie is ready. “Also, I don’t have ring.”
“See?” Mike says, cracking open his sixth beer, which he pours over bacon ice cream. “I’m perfectly calm. She’s having some kind of B12 crash or whatever. I’m leaving my eyebrow behind so she can keep going while I eat the fuck-shit out of this.”
Eager to plant mom in the middle, Natalie tells Trish she thinks Mike is enacting revenge by withholding her ring. 20 minutes later mom agrees and has nearly worked through the duct tape binding her to the chair.
“I’m not obsessive. I am totally able to let go,” Natalie explains, reaching for a drawer to upgrade the duct tape to something Gorilla.
Later on they go out to dinner, which Natalie kicks off by reminding us that silence isn’t awkward to her, because unless you’re talking about her ring she has nothing to say. “I also micromanage Mike’s eating habits,” she suddenly remembers. “I wish you would not eat butter. Air coated bread is much more healthier. Here, you can wave over butter for essence.”
“But butter’s very good for you,” mom keto’s.
“What?” The butter replies.
“Real butter is good for your mind,” mom sciences. “Because of the cow’s memories stored in the udders.”
“That is one interesting,” Natalie agrees. “Have I mention I do not have ring back?”
“I’m starting to sense you want the ring back,” Mom psychics.
Having had more than enough of this shit, mom tells Natalie that orchestrating a test where you return a ring to see if he’ll give it back again is weird, and doesn’t seem to have worked out the way she planned.
“It’s like we’re both hurt about the ring,” Mike Keanus. Natalie looks like she’s going to burst when Mike’s mom suggests setting a tentative date, then they can work towards it and focus on the relationship itself, and not whether the K-1 was a worthy investment.
“I feel like I found a magic button to Mike’s heart. Trish,” Natalie is ready. “You very smart woman. I will buy you car.”
“A card?”
“No. A car.”
“Yep, this is doomed,” mom speaks truth to the producer. “Seriously, how the fuck do these two not ever arrive at any possible solutions? They just repeat the problem over and over. What do they mean when they say ‘keep working on it,’ since they’re not actually working on anything? We’re going to need a COVID-like supply of TP for this shit show.”
The next day Mike is wearing pajama pants in the kitchen, and finally someone understands there’s no point in getting dressed if you’re not leaving. Instead, Mike rocks a pancake flip, and Natalie is understandably amazed, so Mike doesn’t mention that he bathed the pan in butter and poured a full pound bag of sugar into the mix for funzies.
Having agreed to set a date, they bust out a calendar to isolate a number that meets the demands of superstition. “I like number 3,” Natalie says, as they agree to April 3rd. “Because 4+3+2020=11, and 1+1 = 2, plus one ring = 3, and you know what three is? Prime.”
“Holy fucking shit. That’s three words, too.” Mike is into it.
They tell Trish they picked a date, and she’s mellow in her congratulations, because it’s hard to celebrate with two people when you had to stitch the seams of their relationship the night before. Plus, April 3rd is like 37 days before Mother’s Day, which is fucked up. Natalie is fine with a non-church wedding, which is good because Mike isn’t Libby.
“The military just declassified stuff about aliens, so I’m about to be right about a lot of things,” Mike eyebrows. “Also, I’m not doing anything with funny hats unless it happens on Mars.”
Natalie calls her mom to tell her the date, and mom’s happy, because she’s ready to trap Mike in a closet until Beau rides to the rescue if that’s what it takes for these two to marry. After she hangs up the phone Natalie starts crying because she misses her mom. Mike holds her as she cries, and Trish cries and empathizes with her situation, and says it must be very hard to give everything up to live such a different life.
“Thank you for Michael. He’s a really good man.” Natalie feels much more secure, and all of us at home hope they get their shit together since there is a genuine sweetness buried underneath the rubble of their relationship.
Yara is standing next to a wall of Beanie babies, which can only mean she’s purchasing a pregnancy test. She says that when she had her miscarriage, the doctor told her a successful pregnancy would be unlikely. She disappears, and the producers are so in suspense about the outcome that they hover outside the bathroom door, recording her hand washing.
“We could just make this show 90 minutes instead of two hours,” the producers say. “But fuck that. C.R.E.A.M, bitches.”
Yara calls her friend Lena, and holds a pregnancy test up to the phone camera, until Lena tells her to pull it back some since all she sees is a plastic blur. Yep: pregnant, or as they say it in Mexico, pregnant-o.
“That’s right,” Andrew agrees.
“Maybe the test is wrong,” Lena says. “In America they make half of all pregnancy tests positive in advance to confuse the abortion fairy.”
Yara tells Lena that Jovi is going to be back in a few days, and she’ll talk to him about it in person. That few days arrives in the next 30 minutes of show, with Yara taking her nauseated stomach to the airport to pick up Jovi. She mentions that Jovi didn’t believe she was pregnant the last time she had a miscarriage, since he’s a graduate of the Yeah, But Are You Sure It’s Mine? School of Massholes. Eventually he was convinced that biology is still a book he didn’t read, and then he drank enough to eat the book’s pages and forgot all about it.
Yara can’t find him at the airport, and when she calls he claims he’s doing a Darcey in the bathroom and will be out any minute. Turns out he was actually changing into an alcoholic, and greets her with what’s likely his third 9AM drink in hand. This accelerates Yara towards peak ball buster mode, or as she and Jovi call it, foreplay.
“Cut it out, mom,” Jovi whines, covering his drink with his hand. “It’s just soda. Ha, ha, this passes for adulthood to me!”
“Drop away,” Yara writes a soft rock ballad as she tells him to ditch the drink.“Drop away.” A light breeze blows through the airport, her hair drifting over her eyes, as the lighting darkens, a glass breaks, and Slash readies for his guitar solo.
“I’m growing more powerful,” the fetus declares, sucking his mother’s life force through his stomach straw. “Hmmm yummy. I think I’m going to make her crave donuts slathered in lard.”
“Donuts slathered in lard, you say?” Mike adds another item to his This Week’s Menu magnetic white board.
90DF: The World’s Toughest Prisons is ready to take us back to Julia, who has been held without bail for just 20 days. That’s right, kids: all these parent meetings, forced dinners, and impatience with failure to perform 5AM farm labor has happened in 20 days.
“See? This is why I drink at 9AM,” Jovi has answers.
“You know we don’t have cocktails until we’ve warmed the kitchen crickets in our mouths,” dad is appalled. “This is not a joke. This is my house. There are rules.”
“Don’t even live with you, dude,” Jovi loses track of his plastic balancing straw. “This is the last time I take pre-flight peyote.”
After another morning of farm work, Julia calls her dad. He asks why she hasn’t called, and Julia says she’s only allowed access to her phone when she has enough stars on the chore chart, and even then she has to know the secret password, which can only be found inside her bedroom’s mystery paint buckets.
“As the head of your future family...” Julia’s dad begins.
“Did someone say head?” Brandon unzips his pants and times out Pokémon Go.
“...he needs to resolve this.”
“Oh. Never mind,” Pokémon Go is a go.
Julia knows Brandon isn’t even the head of his own body, let alone their family, so she’s going to have to draw a line, and that line is that she’s not enduring marathon disappointed lectures and sneaking into his bedroom ever again.
“I hate. I hate this place,” Julia says, finding the most important words in the English language. “It’s dirty. I look like pig. I hate you now, Brandon.” Brandon wants to like, have a work day and talk about this later. Julia wants to hash it out between hobo spider sprays.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with taking care of a few cute animals,” Brandon manages to be dismissive and patronizing, while forgetting that Julia has already met the family’s body disposal pigs.
Later he comes home and Julia is prepared to read him, completely. “It’s not as hard as you’re making it out to be,” Brandon resumes readily dismisses her feelings. “Let me say cute animals again, and act like there’s not apparently too many of them for a family to manage without imported help.”
Brandon is a bit overwhelmed by Julia’s insistence that they move out, but he’s secretly over the nonstop farm demands too, and says he’ll tell his parents they’re leaving, because he doesn’t want to lose Julia.
Speaking of prison, newly freed Amira is finally headed back to France, while Andrew’s worst resort day ever sallies forth. Through all of this he still doesn’t seem to have noticed she’s recovering from a truly traumatic experience, and maybe he should take his ass to France to comfort her. Or, you know, call her.
Amira’s father has been worried sick, and when Amira finally lands, COVID be damned, dude is hugging his daughter.
“SIX FEET!” A stranger yells, walking by with their nose exposed.
Amira feels guilty because her father suffered because of her, which is the most sincerely sweet family moment on this show since Kyle and Noon’s season. She tells dad that they took her passport, phone, and watch, and basically locked her up for three days. Then they told her she was being rejected for no passport...in an envelope that included her passport. This detail is how you know this story is 100% true.
“We figured she could find it on the way to the airport,” Mexico explains. “Hey, at least the people we put in cages are adults.”
“Was it three days?” Andrew is confused. “Huh. Time flies, I guess!”
Amira is beginning to piece together the depth of Andrew’s selfishness, and she says that she wishes Andrew would have looked for her while she was detained.
“I did!” Andrew insists, flipping through the room service menu. “I even called America and was all, dude you’ve got to help us. But you know Trump’s a busy man, and he can’t hear us over the wall, let alone speak Mexico.”
No one feels more keenly aware of Andrew’s shortcomings than Amira’s father, who figured out his daughter was in trouble long before Andrew did. Then he lost sleep, looked, and remembered to express concern when she was finally free.
“I think he’s not the right man for you,” dad is okay with playing Captain Obvious if the situation demands it. “However, this television exposure should at least guarantee than Tom from London hits on you, aggressively.”
This leads Amira to further fret that she’s also going to have to repair Andrew’s relationship with her father, which is unlikely, since he used their debut emergency phone call to compliment dad’s shirt choice.
Andrew says that now that he knows Amira’s safe, he can do a little self care and stop suffering over a cheeseburger in the lounge. When Amira calls, he’s the portrait of concern. “It’s very urgent that we get married,” he says, removing the umbrella and bouquet of pineapple from his drink. “But since I’m here, I’m going to do a little four-wheeling and maybe launch myself off a water slide. I’m totally going to demand to get on a plane without a face mask on the way home, after I talk you into meeting me in a Turkish prison.”
Amira is hurt that he’s vacationing without her, and carrying on like nothing even happened, and feels like there’s already no room for her to open up about what happened to her. So she hangs up on him, and for some reason the rest of us are still forced to hear his voice, when we’d be okay with the screen just going black, and maybe the sound of him falling over travel guides.
NEXT TIME: Jovi still doesn’t understand how sex works, Mike doesn’t understand how a K-1 works, Andrew doesn’t understand how other people work, Tarik and Hazel still call polyamory “being bisexual,” Brandon’s parents attempt to bully him into remaining a toddler, and Stephanie admits to Ryan that she’s a cousin fucker.
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I'm gonna start this post by clarifying that 90% of the stuff at any dollar store is not worth buying, not usually because of quality but because of quantity - if it's something you use regularly, it's just more economical to buy a larger pack in a regular store. The cost per unit will usually be lower that way. HOWEVER, there are certain things that, if bought at Dollar Tree (and maybe other similar stores but that's the one I frequent), you can save a shitload of money on. The list below is far from comprehensive, so feel free to add to it in the comments.

• Greeting cards (2 for $1 at DT vs. $5-6 at Target. I spent $4 on holiday cards this year instead of $40)
• Gift bags (also 2 for $1 for certain sizes/colors vs. $3-5 at Target) and other gift wrap supplies
• Baking/cooking utensils, especially the Betty Crocker brand ones. I have a baking spatula, kitchen scissors, steel cake scraper, and a few nylon cooking utensils that have been going strong for 2 years with near daily use
• Plates, cups, and bowls (4 of each for $12 vs. $20 at target). After 2 years of daily use my DT plates have no chips or issues. They are not aesthetically perfect, like one bowl is a little higher than the other, the paint isn't identical, but I don't mind that, and the quality is good.
• Mugs and cups. I literally dropped one of my DT glasses on the floor yesterday and it didn't break.
• Coloring/sudoku/crossword books.
• Mechanical pencils, specifically they SoftStride brand
• Hair ties. They do break sometimes, but I lose like 1 hair tie per day so if you go through them as fast as I do, it's worth it.
• Notebooks. You can't find the 5-subject ones but you can get some fun covers
• 3x5 notecards.
• Stickers
• Cleaning cloths/scrubbers
• Holiday decorations
• Theater candy

Here are a few things I have tried out from Dollar Tree and found them to be kind of a fail.

• Baking sheets/pans. They're thin and warp in the oven.
• Food storage containers. The lids don't fit tightly enough and they warp in the microwave.
• Picture frames. They look and feel flimsy, and I feel like if I'm buying something to make my place look nice, I want it to look nice.
• Measuring cups and spoons. The measurements rub off even with hand washing and you're left with a regular plastic cup/spoon.
• Disposable bakeware. I feel like if I tried to put something heavy in one of them like a lasagna the bottom would fall through.

I don't have as many in this list because I tend to avoid certain products at the dollar store, but if you've tried others and liked them or hated them, let's hear it!

Hello MM,
Looking to trade some stuff for some desired items of mine. Only trading within Conus and the only exception is a proxy. Will add lots of PayPal on my side. Otherwise looking to for trade priorities.
Timestamp
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Keyboard	Description	Wants
Space65 Cybervoyager Creamy-White-Black-Gold	BNIB. Kit contains FR4 plate. Scuffed the wrapping plastic, but still sealed. Refer to timestamp	Trade towards Gskt-00, Ogre, Rtx 3080 or $600 shipped Sold

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Artisans	Description	Wants
Peach Bongo Cat	Comes with 2 skulls and will come in a replacement container.	Trade towards Gskt-00, Ogre, Rtx 3080 or $280 shipped Sold
Purin Kot Bongo Cat	Comes with 2 skulls and will come with a box.	Trade towards Gskt-00, Ogre, Rtx 3080
Ice Bear Keyby	Comes with Auth Card and container	Trade towards Gskt-00, Ogre, Rtx 3080
Grizzly Bear Keyby	Comes with Auth Card and container	Trade towards Gskt-00, Ogre, Rtx 3080
Pan Pan Keyby	Comes with Auth Card and container	Trade towards Gskt-00, Ogre, Rtx 3080

Please comment before PM. Chat will be ignored. Thank you and have a good night.