rant · moment 7 of 15
The Doll Heads, the Carousels, and Grandpa's Bromine Poisoning Death
from Alt Ass Eating · #57
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
11 minMore stories from the attic cleanout, including his mother's insistence a doll head is a valuable French antique, a running joke about combining two doll heads into one body, and a dark tangent into his grandfather's bromine poisoning, breakdown, electroshock therapy, and death, capped by riffing on the dark history of the Irish.
- 24:40Tim's mother insists a doll head from the 18th century is a valuable French antique
- 24:58Tim proposes attaching two doll heads to one body to double the price
- 25:12His aunt explains that poor people who finally got houses kept everything because they never had the chance to own things before
- 25:37Tim compares hoarding to other mental illnesses, arguing it becomes worse the more you indulge it
- 26:39Tim's mother would pick up garbage off the street—tables and chairs—claiming she'd refurbish or resell them
- 27:24Tim's aunt says nobody stopped his mother because there was little understanding of mental illness back then
- 28:43They found bills from 1978 stuffed in milk cartons while clearing out the house
- 29:14Tim's aunt treats the junk like an Antiques Roadshow episode while Tim wants everything burned
- 30:02They brought 20 to 30 boxes down, with 15 to 20 percent being Christmas ornaments
- 30:57Tim's aunt mentions they brought down three different carousels for his mother, prompting him to ask what she'll do with them in a psychiatric hospital
- 31:17Tim's plan to solve his family's hoarding: take them out to dinner and burn the house down while they're gone
- 31:45Tim reflects on the dark history of Irish people and their contributions to the world
- 32:14Tim's aunt tells him about his maternal grandfather, a genius with a 160 IQ who was a Christian brother teaching biology
- 32:57The grandfather took bromine or bromide and developed bromine poisoning
- 33:12After going insane, the grandfather kicked the TV and ran into a mental institution when a can of mushrooms exploded
- 33:27Doctors told the grandmother they had to do electric shock therapy or he'd never be normal again
- 33:51After the shock therapy, the grandfather flipped out again and had a heart attack