- I'm here with Jessica St. Clair,
June Diane Raphael,
Sasheer Zamata, Nicole Byer,
my friend Sheea Shafer,
and our whole audience full of besties.
In fact, our next incredible story
comes from a pair of women in our audience right now.
Their friendship was purely built
on the power of handwritten letters.
It's exactly the kind of story our friends at Pilot,
makers of the G2 Gelling Pen,
the go-to pen of the Kelly Clarkson Show,
love to help us celebrate.
47 years ago, they were in fifth grade,
one living in Idaho, the other in Louisiana,
and they became pen pals.
What started as a school project
turned into hundreds of letters
that went from grade school through college,
marriages and kids.
And what's really crazy is,
although they'll always be the best of friends,
they've actually only met in person three times.
Well, four, if you count today.
Let's say hi to Kathy and London, everybody!
(audience cheering and applauding)
Hello!
So meet everybody, first of all
- Hey!
- [Nicole] Hey!
- So how did this-
So it began-
I had a pen pal, actually, in school
and it was like the coolest thing ever
and that's how this started, right?
- So, so our start,
mine started with a teacher assignment
and we had to pick a state.
And I guess
I picked Idaho
because it was a boot
and Louisiana was a boot as well.
And we had to do research on it
and then kind of the crowning point of it
was we wrote a letter to a student
and all the letters were collected,
they went to a school district in Idaho
and then I waited to see if I would get a letter
and it ended up with Kathy and she wrote back to me.
- [Kelly] That's so cool.
So how did it come across to you, Kathy?
Did you wanna do this or your teacher,
it was the same kind of assignment?
- Well, it was very casual handoff
that actually came from a friend
who apparently had been handed the letter
and didn't want it.
So, you know, handed it to me
and I reached out, wrote a letter right away
and it's always a good sign
when the person you're writing writes back.
And so that really kind of started us off
and we traded letters back and forth really regularly.
You know, there's just nothing quite as thrilling
as getting a letter in the mail
that someone has handwritten, so it was awesome.
- [Kelly] Yeah, I mean and it must have been
pretty powerful letters
because y'all have only hung out a few times.
So like, I mean over the years, like,
do you really, is it, do you find it easier?
It's almost like easier to like write it out
and have that-
It's a different kind of connection, I feel like.
- It's really like having a conversation
but a really slow, patient conversation
that we've had over the years
that we've gotten to know each other.
And it is very powerful.
We have found that we have a lot in common.
We both grew up in small towns
and we kind of went through high school together,
you know writing about dating and clubs
and school and studying,
and then college and what was the future for us,
and then our spouses and children,
now grandchildren, so.
- [Kelly] Oh my gosh.
That's so cool.
(audience applauding)
Have y'all, did you ever have pen pals growing up?
- I never had a pen pal.
I mean, I love the idea of it,
I think it's so beautiful,
but I struggle with,
as Jessica knows, I struggle with communication
and responding to texts.
- I write back to every single fan we have on DM
and they'll send me things for June and I'm like,
"I'll get it to her right away."
Like, I'm her social secretary!
- Well, but the two of us really resent
other friends we have who leave us voicemails.
- Ugh.
- That, to me is-
- We hate voicemails!
- In this day and age, unacceptable.
I'd rather a letter!
- I'd rather you fax me! - Yeah!
- I don't wanna check it!
- [Sasheer] Wait, why do yo hate voicemails?
- How dare you send me a voicemail!
- Oh, I'm so angry right now.
So angry.
- The effort it takes me to dial into that
- And, the fear.
- And the fear!
- [Kelly] No, wait, now you do-
- You don't have to dial into the voicemail anymore.
- No, you can just press the button.
- And they transcribe it for you like a text.
- Or, or they have the thing where you text,
and you just hold down the thing
and you say it and then it sends the voice.
- I like a voice memo! - [Sasheer] Yeah.
- I hate a voicemail.
- [Shasheer] Oh wow. - [Kelly] Okay.
- Important distinction!
- Important!
- Nicole leaves me... [Nicole Chuckling]
My whole inbox is just Nicole
leaving me crazy voice memos.
But I love it (audience clapping)
because she's just like, "hi, wada dada dada,"
like, make voices, (Kelly laughing)
and like, alright, I'll just listen to this for two minutes.
- And then whenever her voicemail box is full,
I then leave, like, an audio message,
like via text, and be like,
"it's full! Why?!" - [Kelly] Why is it full?!
- Yeah.
- It's full of you!
- Nicole, don't ever leave me a voicemail.
- [Nicole] I really want to now!
- Please, don't!
- We'll never hear it! - They're fun!
- I've had the United States government
leaving me voicemails
and you know what? - [Nicole] What did you do?!
- Who knows!
There has to be...
If it's important enough,
they will find other avenues. - [Shaheer] Other ways.
(everyone laughing) (audience clapping)
- Alright.
- Well, like I said earlier,
our season long partner, Pilot G2,
the go-to pen of The Kelly Clarkson Show,
loves to celebrate long lasting friendships
built on the power of writing.
So to honor your incredible friendship,
they're gonna give you $5,000
to help plan your ultimate girls getaway.
(audience clapping)
- Oh! - Oh my God!
- [Kelly] Exactly!
- That's incredible!
- [Kelly] They're also gonna give you
a basket of Pilot pens because
I'm assuming you like writing letters, so they're like...
- [London] Thank you.
Thank you, Kelly!