Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hi, Hi, I'm just out for a walk.
Speaker 1: What do I owe the pleasure?
Speaker 3: I have a story and I thought that you in
Speaker 3: particular might be interested in it. Because it takes place
Speaker 3: in Canada.
Speaker 4: It does create a special in my years, per cup.
Speaker 3: A little like Pavlov's bell. I hear Canada.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like my math starts to salivate.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's not just about Canada, but it's about
Speaker 3: going to school in Canada, which you did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I was schooled in Canada. I went
Speaker 2: through French immersion all the way from kindergarten up until
Speaker 2: eleventh grade.
Speaker 3: Could you introduce the show in French?
Speaker 2: Oh? Boy, that's that's a lot to ask. What's what's
Speaker 2: the name of the episode? The sat say, look suet
Speaker 2: in bon Acute.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful. And there are the sounds of sirens to
Speaker 3: ring us in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're the sirens of good narrative storyteller.
Speaker 3: Watch out, everybody. I'm Khalila Holt and this is heavyweight.
Speaker 3: Today is heavyweight short lock.
Speaker 1: Right after the break, Hi, is this Lachlan? Hello?
Speaker 3: Hello?
Speaker 4: Can you hear me Ollo?
Speaker 3: Despite his lack of confirmation, this is indeed Lachlan or
Speaker 3: Locke for short. Hi, It's Khalila calling.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 5: Oh Hi, how are you?
Speaker 3: Locke is twenty years old. When I ask him what
Speaker 3: he does, he says he plants trees, but also he's traveling.
Speaker 3: But also he's kind of a student. He's a disorienting
Speaker 3: person to talk to. Like, despite the fact that we
Speaker 3: exchanged multiple emails setting up this call, I forget yeah.
Speaker 3: And in fact, it's Locke's questionable memory that we're here
Speaker 3: to talk about today, because he's come to me with
Speaker 3: an improbable story, something he recalls vividly but that no
Speaker 3: one else believes actually happened. In revisiting this memory, Lock
Speaker 3: hopes to expose an injustice, to unseat a tyrant, to
Speaker 3: confront a nemesis he's obsessed over since he was just
Speaker 3: five years old.
Speaker 5: But that's a call.
Speaker 3: Madame Nicole, Locke's kindergarten French immersion teacher.
Speaker 5: She wore like mean looking glasses and she kind of
Speaker 5: scowled all the time.
Speaker 3: Locke describes her as an exact double of Edna Mode
Speaker 3: from The Incredibles.
Speaker 5: That's exactly what she looks like, really tiny, short, black
Speaker 5: hair cut off, really sharply, like a ninety degree angle,
Speaker 5: and she like would just kind of walk around and
Speaker 5: like do mean shit all the time.
Speaker 3: But what set her apart from your garden variety evil
Speaker 3: French teacher was one particular habit. According to Locke, Madamnikole
Speaker 3: was a thief. A cheese thief. Madamnicole stole cheese from
Speaker 3: her five year old students.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I would just walk into class and it was
Speaker 5: like before she starts the lesson, it was just like, oh,
Speaker 5: do you have cheese today? And I'd say, yeah, so
Speaker 5: she it You're kind of never see. Like sometimes if
Speaker 5: I was in trouble, then she would like it would
Speaker 5: be a punishment. She takes my cheese as punishment, but
Speaker 5: it's hardly a punishment because she was gonna do it anyway.
Speaker 5: She didn't even refrigerate it. She would put it in
Speaker 5: this cabinet, like in a little wooden cabinet and had
Speaker 5: a padlock on it, like as if I was going
Speaker 5: to try to steal my cheese back.
Speaker 3: Do you believe that? I can't really believe it. It
Speaker 3: seems made up like something a cartoon villain would do.
Speaker 5: I know how it sounds belief. It's pretty ridiculous, but
Speaker 5: that's the problem, because I've told so many people and
Speaker 5: they just laugh it off. I'm running a crew floor fire.
Speaker 3: If I did this season fighting forest fires being another
Speaker 3: of locks many pursuits, so like, I'm I have to.
Speaker 5: Build some sort of credibility with my crew members. And
Speaker 5: the first time I met a bunch of my crew members,
Speaker 5: I told them this cheese story. They all started laughing
Speaker 5: and say like, oh, come on, a bullshit. So now
Speaker 5: all these people are about to work for me, the
Speaker 5: only thing they know about me is that I have
Speaker 5: this like totally false cheese story.
Speaker 3: So for Locke, the frustration isn't simply that this happened,
Speaker 3: but that no one believes that it happened. Locke has
Speaker 3: lost not only his cheese but his credibility because the
Speaker 3: joy of sharing an unbelievable story lies and ultimately convincing
Speaker 3: your audience that it's true. When you're done, you want
Speaker 3: them to think, Wow, how completely wild. Not this man
Speaker 3: is a total liar.
Speaker 5: I would just like to be able to tell the
Speaker 5: story that people believe it some sort of validations that
Speaker 5: are not.
Speaker 3: Completely insane, right, And so Locke wants me to obtain
Speaker 3: a confession from the thief herself to prove that this
Speaker 3: really went on. And what's more, he wants me to
Speaker 3: find out why it went on, because.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's anyone in the world that is
Speaker 5: that big of a fan of cheese that's killing You're
Speaker 5: risking your career, Paul. I don't know if it's worth
Speaker 5: firing over, but you know she's risky getting in trouble
Speaker 5: for this. Like, I just don't get it. I just
Speaker 5: don't understand at all what was going on there.
Speaker 3: Before I get to what was going on there, I
Speaker 3: want some reassurance that anything was going on at all,
Speaker 3: because if Locke can't even remember scheduling a phone call
Speaker 3: last week, what are the chances he accurately recalls something
Speaker 3: from when he was five. I don't want to go
Speaker 3: around falsely accusing this elderly French Canadian woman of larceny.
Speaker 3: So I asked Locke if he's still in touch with
Speaker 3: anyone else from that class who might be able to
Speaker 3: corroborate his memories.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I have a few friends. One of them, though,
Speaker 5: is like is a notorious war But then another friend,
Speaker 5: he's a pretty reliable guy.
Speaker 3: I start with lockslyer friend who rustles the phone around
Speaker 3: as liars are wont to do and then hangs up
Speaker 3: on me. But Locke's other friend, Colin, reliable as build
Speaker 3: schedules of time to talk.
Speaker 6: I've known Lock since the class that was actually talking
Speaker 6: about uh huh, And I always thought he was so
Speaker 6: weird because he would eat the whole apple, including the core.
Speaker 6: This is this kid in kindergarten that way, And that's
Speaker 6: just like kind of his like personality is kind of
Speaker 6: like hardcore like opera. He's finished an apple, there was
Speaker 6: just nothing left.
Speaker 3: In other words, Locke's a guy who never gives up
Speaker 3: on some things like apples are bringing cheese thieves to justice.
Speaker 6: He kind of commits to like weird things, like he
Speaker 6: has a hard time committing to university, but he's like
Speaker 6: so committed to getting getting to the bottom of the
Speaker 6: story with them the code. But on that front, I
Speaker 6: know Locke has these stories about her stealings. I can't
Speaker 6: confirm more than that.
Speaker 3: That Colin has no memory of any cheese stealing. What's more,
Speaker 3: his sister was also in madom Nichol's class, and she
Speaker 3: doesn't remember it either.
Speaker 6: Like, honestly, I want to say it didn't happen. But
Speaker 6: you can also tell that he's like frustrated by the
Speaker 6: fact that I don't remember knowing Locke.
Speaker 3: Colin says, it's all too likely the story is something
Speaker 3: he invented and then convinced himself was true. I'm not
Speaker 3: altogether surprised by this turn of events, but I am
Speaker 3: disappointed that the Kindergarten cheese burglar seems to be no
Speaker 3: more than a myth, and like a terrier on the
Speaker 3: scent of some buried bree, I can't help but dig
Speaker 3: a little more. As it turns out, there are two
Speaker 3: other people who were students of Madam Nicole. Locke's older brothers,
Speaker 3: so I set up some time with his middle brother, Finn. Hello, Hi,
Speaker 3: finn is Khalila.
Speaker 5: Oh sorry, completely.
Speaker 3: Scott, a family trade, I guess. Finn backs up Collin's
Speaker 3: characterization of his brother as an untrustworthy, fabulous.
Speaker 4: Locks like a fantasy liar like Locke, believes the things
Speaker 4: he's lying about a lot of the time. If I
Speaker 4: were you getting a call from Lock and Lock only,
Speaker 4: I would I would hang up and.
Speaker 3: Move on speaking with Finn. It seems increasingly foolish for
Speaker 3: me to put any stock in Locke's barrel of lies
Speaker 3: still like a terrier with a metalworking apprenticeship. I forge
Speaker 3: ahead when I say, Madame Nicole, what are your associations?
Speaker 4: So immediately cheese. We all take out our stacks, and
Speaker 4: she would like, ooh, famage and come in and like
Speaker 4: grab one from somebody and then put it in her
Speaker 4: little tupperware and go back to her desk.
Speaker 3: So finn like Locke remembers the thievery, which means Madam
Speaker 3: Nicole had been stealing cheese for years before Locke even
Speaker 3: came on the scene.
Speaker 4: So weird, but it's true.
Speaker 5: That's the weirdest part of it all.
Speaker 3: I also speak with Locke's oldest brother Owen.
Speaker 5: I love cheese, my mom do that.
Speaker 4: I'm like a cheese fanatic.
Speaker 3: Owen backs up lock story too. He tells me in
Speaker 3: kindergarten he used to save his precious cheese for last,
Speaker 3: making its cruel theft all the more painful.
Speaker 5: The clearest memory is probably the first time it happened,
Speaker 5: and it was a baby bell.
Speaker 4: You know, this bread beacon in my lunch box, and
Speaker 4: so just out it goes, and.
Speaker 3: She said next see for our anglophone listeners. Mercy is
Speaker 3: the French word for thank you, And with that, I'm
Speaker 3: ready to get a confession from the vulur herself or voluse,
Speaker 3: I guess would be the feminine. I haven't taken French
Speaker 3: in a long time. I'm ready to approche Madamnicole, if
Speaker 3: only I can find her. When you're looking for something
Speaker 3: you've lost, people always tell you to retrace your steps.
Speaker 3: So I retrace lock steps back to his old school.
Speaker 6: You need to speak to someone in the main office.
Speaker 3: Please press zero to find out if Madominicole might still
Speaker 3: be teaching there.
Speaker 1: No, she's not here, she's retired.
Speaker 3: Okay, would you happen to have any contact info for her?
Speaker 1: If you send me something, I could send it to her.
Speaker 3: And so I find myself composing a delicate email, something
Speaker 3: vague and accusationless enough not to scare off Madomnikole. There's
Speaker 3: an old student of yours. I say, he still thinks
Speaker 3: about you all the time. He wants to confirm a memory.
Speaker 3: But maybe I'm not delicate enough, because weeks go by
Speaker 3: and I never hear back. The thief is on the lamb.
Speaker 3: If Madamnicole likes cheese half as much as Locke remembers,
Speaker 3: surely she must be getting her fixed somewhere, so with
Speaker 3: no other leads on how to find her, I try
Speaker 3: the only thing I can think of. I look up
Speaker 3: every cheese shop within a ten mile radius of Locke's
Speaker 3: old school and start calling. She's described to me as
Speaker 3: at an a mode from The Incredibles if you've seen
Speaker 3: that movie. I'm sorry you're asking about a specific customer, small,
Speaker 3: big glasses.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, no, thank you for calling, and have a grateful day.
Speaker 3: I do learn, though, that Madamnicole isn't the only burglar
Speaker 3: out there. She's actually part of a grand tradition of theft.
Speaker 4: There's some issues with part of me, like Parmageno agiano,
Speaker 4: like wheels of parm because you look at it like
Speaker 4: a thousand bucks a wheel, right.
Speaker 5: A lot of theft in in the past. You know
Speaker 5: you hear the stories.
Speaker 3: I have not heard the stories, but by now I'm
Speaker 3: all in. So when I get off the phone, I
Speaker 3: go looking for them. According to a report from the
Speaker 3: Consortio del Fromaggio Parmigiano Reggiano, three million dollars worth of
Speaker 3: parmesan cheese is stolen every year in Italy alone. Time
Speaker 3: magazine says cheese in general is actually the most stolen
Speaker 3: food in the world, and after my first fourteen YouTube
Speaker 3: videos on the subject, I let auto play like Jesus
Speaker 3: take the wheel.
Speaker 6: Right now, police are looking for twenty thousand pounds of
Speaker 6: stolen cheese.
Speaker 5: Stage's fifteen is in trouble with police.
Speaker 3: There are still some holes in this case, but detectives
Speaker 3: say they have stringed all the evidence together. Holes in
Speaker 3: this case say cheese. It seems like it's physically impossible
Speaker 3: for anyone reporting on cheese theft to do so without
Speaker 3: making some terrible pun and as someone reporting on this
Speaker 3: topic myself, I feel an obligation to my fellow journalists
Speaker 3: to join the cheese pun fray. But jokes like that
Speaker 3: are just really not my thing. I'd find it physically
Speaker 3: uncomfortable too. For example, characterize Madmnicole as a monster, or
Speaker 3: to say that I hope to close the caso. It
Speaker 3: makes me want to throw up to think of asking
Speaker 3: something like did you have an accomplice or did you
Speaker 3: work prob alone? You wouldn't catch me dead. Referring to
Speaker 3: all that cheese sitting in a locked cabinet as a
Speaker 3: FETA comply, I'm finally saved from the depths of my
Speaker 3: despair and cheese video induced badness by two critical pieces
Speaker 3: of information. The first comes from Locke's family. They find
Speaker 3: an old report card from that time and on it
Speaker 3: is Madamnicole's full name. The second comes from my network
Speaker 3: of spies on the street, courtesy of Locke's honest friend Colin.
Speaker 6: I was talking to my mom and she said she
Speaker 6: might have spotted her in like our neighborhood.
Speaker 3: She was walking near this big apartment building. Colin says,
Speaker 3: maybe she lives there. And when I look up Madaminicole's name,
Speaker 3: together with the address he gave me, I find a
Speaker 3: phone number.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 4: Hello, hey, lock, Hey is cle It.
Speaker 3: Is oh, the oh of a man who forgot he'd
Speaker 3: scheduled something. It's been a while since Locke and I
Speaker 3: last spoke. First he was working in Panama for a
Speaker 3: month and a half, and then he was deep in
Speaker 3: the Canadian wilderness. So I've been eagerly waiting to tell
Speaker 3: him how I finally got a hold of Madomnicole. When
Speaker 3: I caught her at home. Madomnicole told me she didn't
Speaker 3: want to be interviewed for a podcast. She's a private person,
Speaker 3: she said, and On top of that, she's not a
Speaker 3: technological person. She quote hates all the machines. She doesn't
Speaker 3: have a computer or a cell phone. I imagine even
Speaker 3: hearing the word podcast gave her the feeling of a
Speaker 3: demon entering her home. She told me that she would, however,
Speaker 3: be happy to talk to Locke and for him to
Speaker 3: relate the conversation back to me. So I am wondering
Speaker 3: if you would call her and then tell me what
Speaker 3: happens after the fact.
Speaker 5: Oh man, okay, hmm.
Speaker 3: This is not the reaction I was expecting. I thought
Speaker 3: Locke would be over the moon to hear this news,
Speaker 3: but he sounds, if anything, under the moon.
Speaker 5: So kind of the reason that I approached you guys
Speaker 5: was because it was cool, how like you'd act as
Speaker 5: the interlock eater and sort of just like manage the
Speaker 5: situation so one person doesn't have to actually sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
Speaker 5: Jeezus, Yeah that's hmm.
Speaker 3: It's like Locke's reduced to a scared five year old
Speaker 3: kid again, afraid of getting in trouble with the teacher.
Speaker 3: So I offer a security blanket, an idea Madamina Cole
Speaker 3: has agreed to as well. We could have Mona, who's
Speaker 3: one of the other producers listen in on the call. Oh,
Speaker 3: if you need help figuring out what to say?
Speaker 5: Hmm, okay, that could work.
Speaker 3: Selfishly, I also want Mona there as an insurance policy,
Speaker 3: someone who can rat on lock if he slips into
Speaker 3: one of his fantasy lies. Locke and I agree to
Speaker 3: figure out the details in the coming days. But the
Speaker 3: coming days go by, and then the days that come
Speaker 3: after that, and Locke doesn't respond to any of my messages.
Speaker 3: When he finally does get in touch, it's with an
Speaker 3: email that says, a dog eat my phone. I think
Speaker 3: I'm starting to see why Locke has had conflict with
Speaker 3: his teachers. But after several more weeks of excuse making,
Speaker 3: Locke admits that he'll be free one afternoon for a
Speaker 3: phone call. So Mona and I like, Hey, this is
Speaker 3: Mona from Heavyweight.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Khalila.
Speaker 3: Hello. Oh this time we catch him waiting in line
Speaker 3: for his order at the Tim Horton's for our Anglophone listeners.
Speaker 3: That's Canada's off brand version of dunkin Donuts.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Sorry, I totally fixed up the day off that
Speaker 5: I had. But yeah, what what are we doing with
Speaker 5: this plan?
Speaker 6: Here?
Speaker 3: The plan, we remind him is to call madamnicolea.
Speaker 5: We'll give her a call. Yeah, oh jeez, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: I hang up and cross my fingers. Well, Lock and
Speaker 3: Mona phone, they'll report back afterwards. For a long half hour,
Speaker 3: I sit on the floor wondering what could be going on,
Speaker 3: And after speaking with Madamnicole, Lock and Mona call me back.
Speaker 3: I'm dying to know what happened.
Speaker 5: It was amazing. Okay.
Speaker 3: Locke tells me how Madamnicole responded to his accusation right away,
Speaker 3: and she told him incredibly, Yes, she absolutely stole children's cheese.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm rattled right now.
Speaker 3: According to Madomnicole, the thievery was a teaching tool.
Speaker 5: She was really like drilling in the fact that she
Speaker 5: wanted us to know the word fromage. And she claims
Speaker 5: that everybody knows the word fromage now, so it obviously
Speaker 5: works well.
Speaker 3: I can appreciate Madaminicole's willingness to try out of the
Speaker 3: box teaching methods. Fromage does not to me seem like
Speaker 3: that hard of a word to learn. There had to
Speaker 3: be something else behind it, and it turns out there was.
Speaker 5: She said that she knew the kids were getting mad
Speaker 5: when when she would do it when she was still
Speaker 5: at Sees, and she just thought the looks on their
Speaker 5: faces were so funny.
Speaker 3: They looked stunned old Locke, like they'd just been slapped.
Speaker 3: It was, in her words, fantastic, like.
Speaker 5: In that way, you could kind of perceive it as well,
Speaker 5: she's a little crazy. It would kick out of it,
Speaker 5: devastating these kids, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: it was just hilarious.
Speaker 3: So it was just like a running joke with herself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a joke that made an impression. All these years later.
Speaker 3: Locke likely wouldn't even remember madominicole were it not for
Speaker 3: these cheese shenanigans. So maybe her teaching tool worked after all.
Speaker 3: Maybe she understood that you tend to remember the negative
Speaker 3: over the positive. Maybe she needed to keep things lively
Speaker 3: for herself to be able to pass that energy onto
Speaker 3: the kids. Or maybe she just saw an easy way
Speaker 3: to get her hands on some free cheese. Like she was.
Speaker 5: Adamant about how much she liked cheese. That's for sure.
Speaker 5: We weren't wrong on that front. Yeah, And she says
Speaker 5: that the parents theasy knew about it, and they also
Speaker 5: thought it was funny. So at Christmas and at the
Speaker 5: end of the year she would get gifts of like
Speaker 5: wheels and wheels and cheese. Clearly everybody else thought it
Speaker 5: was funny except for the kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think those are those are the highlights.
Speaker 3: How does it feel to have this confirmed directly from
Speaker 3: her mouth?
Speaker 5: It's cool? Like this cool that. Don't know, it feels
Speaker 5: weird to say that it's over, but like the story
Speaker 5: is complete now, like I actually.
Speaker 4: Know what happened.
Speaker 3: Lucke did fantasize some of the specific details. Madam Nicole
Speaker 3: said there was no locked cabinet, she'd eat the cheese
Speaker 3: right away, and she never thieved as a punitive measure.
Speaker 3: But he was right about the basic truth. Indeed, he
Speaker 3: had a kindergarten teacher who routinely stole her student's cheese.
Speaker 3: And next time he tells this story, if anyone thinks
Speaker 3: this man is a total liar, he can point to
Speaker 3: this episode disproof of the whole thing.
Speaker 5: Her voice is yeah, exactly how I imagine, but the
Speaker 5: tone is not. She's so friendly.
Speaker 3: Did she remember you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, she did, and.
Speaker 6: My brothers too.
Speaker 5: I was telling her where they had ended up. She
Speaker 5: like seems to take a like, real genuine pleasure and
Speaker 5: joy out of knowing that some of her students are
Speaker 5: having success. And it really it turns out she's just
Speaker 5: like a genuinely great person. I couldn't have been more
Speaker 5: wrong about her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your opinion really did a one to eighty?
Speaker 5: Really did? I want to I want to redact all
Speaker 5: the all the terrible things I might have said in
Speaker 5: the past. Too too great.
Speaker 3: The cartoon villain of Locke's memories has melted into a
Speaker 3: real person. Speaking with her all these years later, he's
Speaker 3: able to see his old tea not the way a
Speaker 3: five year old would, but as another adult, Like.
Speaker 5: Now that I'm more mature, I see that this is
Speaker 5: all actually really funny. And if I were a kindergarten indeed,
Speaker 5: it's probably they're doing similar things.
Speaker 3: And in fact, Locke may be doing similar things pretty soon,
Speaker 3: because he tells me he's getting tired of his vagabond lifestyle,
Speaker 3: that he's ready to put down some roots. He's thinking
Speaker 3: about becoming a teacher, and if he does, he wants
Speaker 3: to be the fun kind, the kind that keeps his
Speaker 3: students guessing, the teacher they'll remember for years down the road.
Speaker 2: Now that the furnitures returning.
Speaker 5: To its goodwill home.
Speaker 2: Now that the last month's rent is skiming with the damage.
Speaker 3: To take this moment to deserve.
Speaker 5: If we meant it, if we chalk.
Speaker 1: Felt around for five.
Speaker 3: From things that Accidentally. This Heavyweight short was produced by
Speaker 3: Phoebe Flanagan, Mohemy mcgauker, and me Khalila Holt, along with
Speaker 3: Jonathan Goldstein. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Special thanks
Speaker 3: to Pierce Singing Wendy Zuckerman, and extra special thanks to
Speaker 3: Locke's mom Dawn. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Bobby Lord
Speaker 3: mixed the episode with original music by Christine john K Samson,
Speaker 3: Blue Dot Sessions, Sean Jacoby and Bobby Lord. Additional music
Speaker 3: credits can be found on our website gimlipmedia dot com
Speaker 3: slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The weaker Lands,
Speaker 3: courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight,
Speaker 3: on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast, or email us at our
Speaker 3: new address, Heavyweightshow at gmail dot com. We'll be back
Speaker 3: next week with our last episode of the season.