Ira Glass: So Miki, this is your high school.

Miki Meek: This is my high school. And it's really weird to be here with you, even though I suggested this. Even though this was my idea.

Ira Glass: And which were you?

Miki Meek: I think I was a regular kid. Regular kid/county kid.

Ira Glass: OK, so you guys lived in the country.

Miki Meek: We lived in the country, yeah, yeah. Let's see, where are we are walking by now? Just walking through the hallway. This is the main hallway. Opening scenes of Footloose are right here.

Miki Meek: Yeah, the opening scene, so Kevin Bacon's first day of school. He walks past the cafeteria in this hallway, and a cowboy confronts him, right in this spot.

Ira Glass: Right in the spot where we're standing?

Miki Meek: Right in the spot where we're standing, yeah.

Miki Meek: You ask someone to a dance, you've got to go big. Which means you've got to leave something on someone's porch. You gotta decorate their car. You gotta break into their bedroom. You gotta send them on a scavenger hunt.

Ira Glass: Break into their bedroom and do what?

Miki Meek: Decorate it, trash it, leave a message.

XXX

Ivan Webber: Look, look, they're finding it. I think they're finding it.

Ira Glass: Is this more fun than the actual dance?

Kylie: Yes. It really is. I mean, in this case, the dance is not going to compare.

Ivan Webber: This has been quite an experience.

Kylie: It's just so fun to get it together and then have all those embarrassing, scary, anxious moments. I don't know. It's fun. It's the best part.

XXX

Ben Harrison: Not to worry. He has revolutionary new cures, and he will cure her.

Miki Meek: And what were they? I mean, how was he going to cure her?

Ben Harrison: Well, he at first started radiation treatments there at the hospital. Then, as her illness progressed, he came by and started treating her in her home. He made this Frankenstein-ish electrical contraption.

Miki Meek: What did it look like?

Ben Harrison: It looked like a big globe, and it had sparks inside. And he put electrodes on her chest, and they would shock her. He claimed that this put thousands of neutrons in the air, billions of neutrons in the air. And these were going to help cure her.

Miki Meek: This gets weirder and weirder.

Ben Harrison: It was pure nonsense. It was just not going to work.

Miki Meek: Did she want the treatments, though?

Ben Harrison: I mean, there was just nobody else who offered any hope whatsoever. So this was her only chance, because he was the only one offering a silver bullet.

XXX

Ben Harrison: Von Cosel talks to the funeral director, or the night watchman, or whoever, that he needs to come in and rebed her body.

Miki Meek: What does that mean?

Ben Harrison: She's been dead for long enough so that she's decomposing. And he is very upset, because he claimed the mortician didn't follow his instructions as far as embalming goes. And so he puts new cloth on it, and cleans up the casket, and he takes off the dress she was buried in.

Miki Meek: Man.

Ben Harrison: Because it's rotted, and replaces it with cloth, and I think he put some new felt underneath her. He loved her that much.

Miki Meek: That's one way to describe it.

Ben Harrison: Yeah. And he was becoming more and more delusional.

Ben Harrison: I really don't think he accepted the fact that she was dead. I think he still felt she was alive, because I think he had valves on this thing.

Miki Meek: For what?

Ben Harrison: So he could speak with her directly into the casket.

XXX

Ida Roberts: My mother knew Maria Elena. And because she accepted him, my mother had no problem was with what he did.

Miki Meek: I mean, was your mom upset that he had had the body for so long?

Ida Roberts: No.

Miki Meek: Really?

Ida Roberts: She was not upset.

Miki Meek: But isn't there something also later? The autopsy report came out he was having sexual relations with her, or attempting to?

Ida Roberts: Well, I guess he was in love with her, and he made love to her. And he didn't care whether she was dead or not. In fact, he never-- he never wanted to think that she was dead. He wanted to think that she was coming back. She was asleep.

Miki Meek: I think, Ida, you are a very hard person to shock.

Ida Roberts: Yeah, mhm. Just remember, this was a very small town and very close. Everybody was very close. And I believe that's the way, laid back in Key West like we are, we just accept things.

XXX

Miki Meek: When you look at this story now, the story of von Cosel, I mean, do you view it as romantic or completely nuts?

Ida Roberts: I think it's a nice love story. I do. I wouldn't have any bad thing to say about him. 

Miki Meek: Why is that? Explain that.

Ida Roberts: Because he was in love with her. I mean, he was eccentric of course, you know crazy thoughts he had, but I mean, he wasn't there to abuse her or anything. You know, I mean--

Miki Meek: According the record, he was.

Ida Roberts: Wait, but he didn't chop her up and throw her in the ocean or anything, like a lot of people have done, you know? A lot of spouses. But he took good care of her. And he wanted-- he just didn't want to let go.

Miki Meek: I mean, definitely selfish, though. In a lot of ways, I mean, he's doing what he wants to do, and not necessarily what the family would have wanted her to do-- wanted him to do, or even Elena.

Ida Roberts: Love is like that. Love is kind of selfish, isn't it? When you find somebody you want, you want them regardless.

XXX

Don Carbonell: I might have even been playing in the yard with Frank, whose father owned the funeral home at the time. And they opened the embalming room doors.

Miki Meek: And how close did you get?

Don Carbonell: I was probably six to ten feet away from the table that they had her laid up on.

Miki Meek: And what do you remember? Do you remember what she looked like?

Don Carbonell: Yeah, vaguely, I remember. She had glassy eyes, and she just-- she didn't look real. She didn't look real. Looked like maybe somebody made up a body. That's the way she had impressed me. You'd say a big, overgrown doll.

XXX

Suzanne Asbury-oliver: It was just kind of sad and romantic all at the same time.

David Kestenbaum: Were they having an affair?

Suzanne Asbury-oliver: Well, that was my guess.

David Kestenbaum: Yeah. How did it feel doing that one?

Suzanne Asbury-oliver: Yeah, it was nice, you know? Letting somebody express a huge emotion.

David Kestenbaum: In clouds of smoke.

Suzanne Asbury-oliver: Yeah, mile-high letters, 10000 feet above the Earth.

XXX

David Kestenbaum: This just got super real.

Jim Record: Oh, it's real. Yeah, this got super real in a hurry.

David Kestenbaum: And where's the button for the smoke?

Jim Record: Right here.

David Kestenbaum: Can I press it?

Jim Record: Sure

David Kestenbaum: There's a very small fire extinguisher here.

Jim Record: That fire extinguisher, if you can't put it out with that thing, then you jump out of the airplane.

XXX

David Kestenbaum: Are there are a lot of tight turns? Would I get sick?

Jim Record: It's all tight turns. Yes, you would get sick. It's not normal. You spend a lot of time upside down and backwards.

David Kestenbaum: Do you ever screw up?

Jim Record: Oh, yes. Unfortunately, I have.

XXX

Jim Record: We've done one divorce. And the divorce message was, "She got it all."

David Kestenbaum: That seem sad to you?

Jim Record: No no. I can't say it did, since I've been divorced before. Everybody says the happiest times of a boat owner-- the day they buy it, and the day they sell it. I would think maybe a marriage would be like that-- the day you get married and the day you finally are not married.

David Kestenbaum: Can you imagine the guy looking up and being like, I did it.

Jim Record: It's a defiant stand. It's like, yes, but the last $5000 you didn't get, because I put it into this message.

XXX

Elna Baker: I believed that it was the surest way to show someone you love them or to win love.

Ira Glass: And a grand gesture could be, like, what?

Elna Baker: A declaration of love, like a speech, but in a very public manner. A giant cardboard sign. Showing someone that you especially knew them through a very special gift.

XXX

Elna Baker: Yeah. No, I definitely-- once I started having sex, I stopped doing grand gestures. Because I was like, oh, turns out you can just--  You know? You could just have sex with someone.

Ira Glass: That made it weird dirtier, the way you just said that.

Elna Baker: OK.

Ira Glass: OK.

Elna Baker: And I grew up on grand-- like my parents, the way my parents got together was-- I grew up on stories of grand gestures.

Ira Glass: Oh, is that true?

Elna Baker: Yeah.

Ira Glass: Like what?

Elna Baker: My dad and mom dated for about two and a half weeks. And my dad went to the Mormon temple, and he was just praying to see if he should date this woman. And he said that he heard the voices of his future children, like me and my brothers and sisters, and we were like, hurry, go, do it. Like, we want to be born.

Ira Glass: Really?

Elna Baker: Yeah. And he rushed out of the temple, went and found my mom, knocked on her door, brought her outside of her dorm. And in front of the dorm, there was a rock, like a big rock. And he made her stand on top of the rock. And then he knelt down and said, "Will you marry me?" And she said yes.

Elna Baker: They'd been dating for two and a half weeks. They've known each other for four weeks. And my parents actually are very in love, and very happily married. And so I believed that love was like hearing a voice that basically told you this was right. And then you would do anything for that voice.

XXX

Elna Baker: So he got it from the closet, and I was like, what you have to do is go over to his apartment and leave it at his door. He'll get it. He'll know that you get him, and you love him.

Ira Glass: Now, when you suggested this to her, what was her attitude about it?

Elna Baker: That's a terrible idea. She was very, very resistant. But then this thing happens when you're with me, apparently, where I just got her all spun up into the idea.

Ira Glass: Your air of confidence drew her in.

Elna Baker: Totally. It's like I put her in a box and shook the box, and then-- or when a kid is going to play pinata, and you turn them around and then push them in the direction--

Ira Glass: Of the pinata. That's what you did to her.

Elna Baker: That's what I did to her, where she eventually just started getting excited about the gesture itself.

XXX

Elna Baker: And so they met up and had this huge blow out fight, where she was like, how come you didn't thank me for the gift? And he was just like, you totally broke my heart. You crushed me. And it actually is offensive that you think that this gift could just instantly make up for all of that.

Ira Glass: Were you surprised?

Elna Baker: Shocked. I was waiting like a puppy at the door for her to come in and tell me, thank me.

Ira Glass: Yeah.

Elna Baker: And she walked in, and she was crying, and totally devastated, heartbroken.

XXX

Elna Baker: Which I have here. Do you want me to read the email I wrote?

Ira Glass: Totally.

Elna Baker: All right. "I don't know if you're still in Zambia, but my girlfriends and I are going to South Africa in the spring to visit some family friends of mine. I'm not sure how far Zambia is from South Africa, but if it's close, I'd love to come up and say hi. It'd be fun to see you. It's been a while. I hope you're well. X, Elna." But OK, I did not have a trip to Africa planned. 

Ira Glass: Do you have some sort of friends in South Africa?

Elna Baker: No, made that up entirely.

Ira Glass: And then "I don't know if Zambia is near South Africa." Did you actually look on a map?

Elna Baker: Yeah.

Ira Glass: Yeah, OK.

Elna Baker: But that's why I chose South Africa.

XXX

Elna Baker: When he was on the airplane, she looked up the roster, found his name, and found that in a week, he was going be flying back through the same airport. So she changed her schedule, made sure she was working at that time, got all dressed up, waited a whole day. He didn't fly through. That was it. And so she finishes the story, and I was like, this is the worst story I've ever heard. That was it? 

Ira Glass: This is the most tragic. Right, because it seemed like true love to you?

Elna Baker: Oh, yeah.

Ira Glass: Because, just to review, you hadn't been in love yourself yet?

Elna Baker: Yeah, but I'd been in love at a glance.

Ira Glass: That's as far as you had gone.

Elna Baker: Yeah, and it feels-- ah.

XXX

Elna Baker: I don't know. It hit me in that moment that sending the letter would mean that Heather was going to get hurt. And I felt really nervous.

Ira Glass: Yeah. Because every other time you've tried this, it's failed.

Elna Baker: Exactly.

Ira Glass: And suddenly you realize, oh, she's going to be hurt, and she was feeling OK, and now I got her hopes up.

Elna Baker: Yep.

Ira Glass: And she's going to feel bad, and it's my fault.

Elna Baker: Exactly. Yeah, but then at the same time, I also felt proud of her. Because this was the first-- I felt like she put her heart out again. I guess the consolation in that moment was, this probably isn't going to work out, but she showed the universe, or whatever, that she's willing to try again.

Ira Glass: Well, she showed herself that she's willing to try again after all the sadness that she'd had with her boyfriend. So does she end up getting a boyfriend after that?

Elna Baker: Well, so two weeks later the guy who got the letter wrote back.

Ira Glass: Mhm.

Elna Baker: And it was actually pretty short and friendly. He remembered meeting her, and she left an impression on him too. And they started dating. And they dated for seven years, and now they're married.

Ira Glass: What?

Elna Baker: Mhm.

Ira Glass: Wait, that's the end of the story?

Elna Baker: Yeah, they actually got together.

Ira Glass: What?

Elna Baker: I know. I gave a toast at their wedding, where I told this story of writing the letter. It's kind of the most magical thing that I've ever helped facilitate.

Ira Glass: OK, so that worked with her. Do you think these kinds of things are a good idea?

Elna Baker: Grand gestures?

Ira Glass: Yeah.

Elna Baker: No, not anymore. And actually, I think it worked--

Ira Glass: Wait, wait, I'm confused now. Why are they a bad idea?

Elna Baker: It seems false. It's not really how you show someone you love them in the way I thought it was. I feel like it has more to do with you than the other person.