Queen of the Con · iHeartPodcasts and AYR Media

The Handyman of West Texas: Ep. 1

March 17, 2026·34 min·3 clips

A handyman in Midland, Texas reveals hundreds of wealthy housewives pay him for sex under the guise of home repairs.

Midland sounds ordinary at first. High school football is big, there is a stadium tied to Friday Night Lights, and the Texas pride is easy to picture. Then the oil story takes over. A hydraulic-fracturing boom in the Permian Basin brings the guest there for work, and he describes a town sitting over billions and billions of dollars' worth of oil. The host keeps nudging for details, and the place starts to sharpen. Money, faith, and local law all seem to live on the same block. Nearby dry counties catch the guest off guard. No liquor stores, no supermarket alcohol, and bringing alcohol into one can get you arrested. Sunday is its own thing. Beer is allowed after noon, but other alcohol is blocked in the guest's telling because the law waits for church to let out. The host hears how odd that sounds. His water-into-wine aside works because the rules feel both strict and ridiculous. Churches are everywhere in Midland: Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, and more. The town is described as the center of the Texas Bible Belt, and that matters once Mickey enters. He grows up in a devout Catholic household, taught by nuns and priests, with a childhood that sounds protected and narrow. The guest knows that world too. Catholic school for twelve years left him turned off Catholicism and organized religion in general. That detail gives the setup some bite. The episode is mapping a town, but it is also showing how a religious place can shape someone before the con story even begins. The host lets football, oil, alcohol laws, church life, and childhood memory pile up until the setting feels like evidence.

As heard by us

A Midland story where oil, faith, and local rules shape the telling.

The episode gives Midland and the Permian Basin real shape. Oil money, dry counties, and Sunday alcohol rules do more than color the setting, and the religious backdrop lands too, from the Texas Bible Belt and churches everywhere to a Catholic school upbringing and a skeptical…

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Why you'd press play

You want a West Texas conversation that gets specific fast.

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