Expertly Done (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

**MrBallen** (0:00)
Today, I'm going to share three stories that are about people who have a lot of experience in a particular area, but their expertise and really their confidence surrounding their expertise is actually exactly the thing that causes them to make a disastrous mistake. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark & Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, the next time you're at the Follow Buttons house, sneak into their kitchen and steal all of their forks. Okay, let's get into our first story called Protection.
The story of Southern New Hampshire University started in 1932 above a small storefront. Almost a century later, SNHU offers over 200 degree programs online. There are no set class times, so learning fits around your schedule. And courses are career-focused to help strengthen your skills. But the best part of the story? SNHU's online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the entire country. This could be your next chapter. Visit snhu.edu/mrballentoday.
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One evening in November of 1972, a 68-year-old man named Demetrius Machura hurried around his small room at a boarding house in Stoke-on-Trent, England, pouring salt all over the floor.
And as he did this, he looked out the window and saw the fading daylight and knew he had to hurry.
However, running around like this was really taxing, especially on his lungs, because for decades, he had worked in this very dusty pottery factory, and it had really taken a toll on him. So moving faster was really hard to do. But he really needed to push through the pain and the discomfort and finish what he was doing before it got dark out. Because when it got dark out, that's when the vampires came out.
So Demetrius had emigrated from Poland about 25 years earlier. And in his home country, vampires were not just, you know, lore, but actually they were a huge part of the culture, and were often spoken about as being very real dangers that people should be scared of. And recently, Demetrius, despite now living in England, of course, he had begun hearing about a lot of vampire sightings here. A few years ago, he started noticing these news reports about a vampire that was living in London's Highgate Cemetery. And also, around the same time he began seeing those reports, he also learned about these two girls who had been attacked by a vampire in the English countryside. And Demetrius, he just could not believe how people were just not that panicked about this. I mean, Demetrius was terrified. You know, he had grown up being scared of vampires that obviously, you know, played a role in his reaction to these sightings now in England. But still, he's thinking, like, why aren't more people scared about this? But even more than that, when Demetrius would actually talk about, you know, these vampire concerns that he had with people in England, he found most people thought it was fake, that they thought that, you know, these news reports and, you know, all that stuff, it was just made up. It was, it was fake. And then they would kind of look at Demetrius as sort of like an idiot for thinking that that was real. Like, come on, vampires aren't real. But to Demetrius, he just felt like, you know what? Those people who don't believe in this very real threat that obviously is getting worse here, those people, they're the idiots, not him. And so Demetrius, instead of, you know, trying to defend his position or try to convince anyone to believe what he believed, he decided to just do what he had to do to protect himself.
And he knew exactly what to do. So, Demetrius, he had a whole routine of things he would do to protect himself from vampires when he was living in Poland. And mostly he had abandoned that routine when he came to England. But now, you know, since these sightings, he had brought back that routine. And it was very extensive. He had added on to it, made it more elaborate. But it was something he now did every single night, because vampires only come out at night. And so that's when you need protection. So before Demetrius climbed in bed at night, he would pour salt all around the room. And he would also scatter fresh garlic cloves everywhere, since those were both very toxic to vampires. And then after that, he would go up to each of the crosses that he had on his wall to make sure they were properly secured, because crosses are known deterrents to vampires. And then typically, after checking all the crucifixes, he would go around and maybe do a little more salt, a few more garlic cloves. And then, once everything was in place and secure, he would climb into bed. And the moment his head hit the pillow, he would feel his heart rate finally start to settle down, because he knew that, at least for this night, he would be safe. And so in November of 1972, Demetrius just continued every night doing his vampire protection procedure. And even though some people thought this was very strange and very paranoid of him because, you know, vampires aren't real, right?