0:02

A quick warning, there are curse words that are

0:04

unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If

0:06

you prefer a beeped version, you can

0:08

find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From

0:13

WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm

0:15

Tobin Lowe in for Ira Glass. You

0:19

may have heard of comedian Tig Notaro, but if

0:21

you're a gay person like me, you have really

0:23

heard of Tig Notaro. She

0:26

is what I would call gay famous, which

0:28

makes the story of what happened to her so

0:30

surprising. She and her wife

0:33

Stephanie have two kids, twin boys. And

0:35

after seven years of living in the same

0:37

house with Stephanie and Tig, having their two

0:40

moms tend to every meal and butt wipe,

0:42

seven years of the boys telling their

0:45

teachers and random whomever's that they have

0:47

two moms, they're all in the car

0:49

on the way to first grade one morning. Stephanie

0:51

and I were just in the front seat talking and they

0:53

were in the back seat talking like we

0:56

always do. And

0:58

then Stephanie said something

1:00

about us being gay and our

1:03

son Finn leans forward and

1:07

pokes his head between us and he

1:09

says, you're gay? We

1:16

were like, obviously

1:20

just as shocked as he was. We

1:23

were like, yeah. And

1:26

he said, what's gay? And

1:29

that was a whole other level of stunned.

1:32

Oh, my gosh. How

1:36

is this information only

1:38

just now coming out? Tig's

1:41

been with her wife for over a decade. And

1:43

as far as they knew, they've been gay for

1:45

the entirety of their children's lives. But

1:48

apparently it was news to Max and Finn. And

1:51

I started to feel insecure thinking,

1:53

oh, my gosh, here he's lived

1:55

over seven years not

1:59

knowing. He had gay parents. What

2:02

if he's upset

2:04

now? What if he doesn't

2:06

like his life or his family or he's

2:09

disappointed in some way or... What's

2:11

the first thing you say back to him when

2:13

he asked that question? I was saying,

2:15

okay, so gay is when a boy

2:18

likes a boy or

2:23

a girl likes a girl, and

2:26

that would be specific

2:28

to being gay. Mm-hmm,

2:31

mm-hmm. And they

2:33

were just like, oh, okay. Before

2:35

Tae can say more, they're pulling up in front

2:37

of the school. The car ride is only a

2:39

couple minutes long. And then the

2:41

kids are running out of the car and Tae and

2:44

her wife are left to wonder how their sons had

2:46

possibly not seen something right in front of their faces.

2:49

And we drove away

2:51

maybe going half a mile an hour.

2:53

We were so stunned. Stephanie

2:55

and I glanced at each other like,

2:57

what in the hell just happened?

3:00

Do you have a moment

3:02

after this comes out where

3:09

you're like, oh no, what kind of parent am

3:11

I that this hasn't been discussed? Is there like

3:14

a part of your brain doing that? Oh,

3:17

a million percent. I mean, when... When

3:23

there's any sort of moment,

3:26

I was gonna say moment like this, but

3:28

I don't know how many moments like this

3:30

I've had. I mean, I did have a

3:32

similar one when they were five and I

3:35

was reading them a story before bed and

3:37

Finn interrupted me and

3:39

said, they call me

3:41

mare, which is for mother, French. And

3:46

Finn said, mare, are

3:48

you a boy or a girl? And

3:50

that was when he was five and

3:53

I just stopped and I laughed and

3:55

I said, well, what do you think I am? And

3:58

he said, I think you're a boy. boy. And

4:01

I said, OK, I said, well, I

4:04

am a girl. And he

4:06

said, huh, OK. Well, but you

4:08

look like a boy. Right. And

4:10

I said, yeah, yeah. And

4:13

and then we just kept

4:15

reading the book and I was

4:17

just laughing to myself like, oh, my gosh, my son

4:19

didn't know I was a girl. One

4:23

reason all of this was especially mystifying was

4:25

that the boys, like I said, definitely knew

4:27

they had two moms. We're kind of proud

4:29

of it. Not like in a oh,

4:33

yeah, we have two moms. There's like we have

4:35

two moms. We have two. Also,

4:37

the school they go to is very

4:39

progressive and celebrates pride every year. And

4:42

we everyone drops

4:44

their kids off in rainbows. And

4:48

it's like, I guess they didn't

4:50

know. I guess

4:52

they didn't know what the pride was. You

4:54

know, they're just running around with rainbows on

4:56

them. They're like, sure, happy pride. Tegan

5:03

Stephanie eventually figured out what happened. Sure,

5:06

Max and Finn knew they had two moms, but

5:09

Tegan Stephanie had never sat down with them to

5:11

say two moms who are married.

5:13

That's what gay is. And

5:15

more importantly, they never said the

5:17

words, we're gay. Took a while

5:19

for me to sort that out and understand

5:22

that a wedding

5:24

picture and two moms doesn't

5:26

equal gay. Right. Right. And

5:29

I was thinking about how,

5:31

like, when you first come out, there's like

5:33

a moment where you like have to do

5:35

the spiel a bunch to people.

5:39

And then it's sort of like tapers off and you

5:41

just start living your life. Like, I can't remember the

5:43

last time I had to sit down and have a

5:45

coming out conversation with somebody. It has

5:48

been so long since I had

5:50

to come out to anybody, anybody.

5:52

Right. And I would never have

5:54

guessed in my own

5:57

house, there were two people. It

6:00

didn't. We have three cats. I feel like

6:02

they probably know we're gay. This

6:08

stuff happens all the time. The people close

6:10

to you miss something about you that seems

6:12

so obvious. The truth is right

6:14

in front of their face, and they don't see it.

6:18

Today on the show, we have stories of people

6:20

trying to end this misunderstanding once and for all.

6:23

In one, they build an actual machine to try

6:25

to convince the other person. In another,

6:27

they call a scientist for help. One

6:30

person even tries reaching out to the federal government,

6:33

which kind of works. Actually, in every

6:35

case, they get a certain kind of satisfaction.

6:38

Stay with us. Support

6:50

for This American Life comes from NetSuite. What

6:52

does the future hold for business? Can

6:54

someone invent a crystal ball? Until then,

6:56

over 38,000 businesses have

6:59

future-proofed their business with NetSuite

7:01

by Oracle, the number one

7:03

cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial

7:05

management, inventory, and HR into

7:07

one platform. With real-time insights

7:09

and forecasting, you're able to

7:11

peer into the future and

7:13

seize new opportunities. Download the

7:15

CFO's guide to AI and

7:17

machine learning for free at

7:19

netsuite.com/T-A-L. It's

7:23

This American Life. Act one, there

7:25

will be blood. Okay,

7:28

so in this first story, a person gets so

7:30

fed up with other people dismissing a thing that

7:32

was happening to them that they

7:34

devise a way for the other person

7:37

to actually experience it firsthand. They

7:40

build a machine that simulates period

7:42

pain. Maybe you've seen

7:45

these videos on TikTok of people, mostly

7:47

men, getting hooked up to one of these

7:49

things, getting to feel for the

7:51

first time what a person with a uterus goes

7:53

through regularly. Aviva

7:55

DeCornfeld, one of the producers on our

7:58

show, got curious if this social... experiment

8:00

really changes anything. If

8:02

men who didn't really believe their partners about

8:05

what happened during their periods would be convinced

8:07

by this experience. So

8:09

she went to see it in the wild at

8:11

a rodeo in Calgary known as the Stampede, where

8:13

the machine was set up for anyone who might

8:16

be a doubter. Here's Aviva. I'll

8:18

admit, I came into this pretty

8:20

skeptical. The idea that

8:23

five minutes of manufactured cramping could

8:25

somehow make men understand women better.

8:27

It seemed optimistic, especially

8:30

when their starting point seemed to be so

8:32

basic. I asked men

8:34

standing in line for the machine the question, what

8:36

does a period cramp feel like? Their

8:39

guesses included food poisoning,

8:41

bone pain, getting kicked in

8:44

the balls, a pinch, and

8:46

being really full. More

8:48

often than not, they made these guesses

8:50

while standing next to their partner, who

8:52

was off mic, silently shaking her head,

8:54

no. Either

8:56

more women than I thought avoid talking

8:58

about their periods with their partners, or

9:01

most of these boyfriends have extremely

9:04

selective hearing. How was

9:06

your period pain? Really bad.

9:08

Really? I didn't know they hurt.

9:10

What? You didn't know? No. You're

9:13

learning right now that your girlfriend has

9:15

terrible period pain? Yeah. How long have

9:17

you been together? Five years. His

9:20

girlfriend asks, what did you think was going on when

9:23

I was in bed? I don't know. I

9:25

thought you just went to sleep. Once

9:27

a month? Yeah. I knew it happened.

9:29

I never really asked much about it. This

9:33

kind of ignorance is the exact motivation

9:35

for Lux Perry, the person running the

9:37

simulator. Lux is 31.

9:40

They're sharp and funny. They first

9:42

started running the simulator a couple years ago

9:44

and have since taken it all over the

9:46

world. Lux is doing

9:49

all of this because period pain has been

9:51

the defining factor of their life. They

9:53

have severe endometriosis, which is a

9:55

chronic disease where tissue that's supposed

9:57

to grow inside the uterus grows

10:00

outside of it, which causes all

10:02

sorts of problems, including extreme pain.

10:05

Lux has been to the hospital with complications

10:07

over 75 times, and it took over 20

10:10

years for them to even get a diagnosis.

10:13

And when everyone around

10:15

you is telling you that the

10:17

pain that you experience is completely

10:19

not real and it's ruined your

10:21

entire life, it's kind

10:25

of how you end up building a simulator. Lux

10:29

isn't the only one who's done this. There

10:31

are lots of period simulator videos online, but

10:34

the machine people are using in those other videos

10:37

only triggers a very superficial cramp, nothing

10:39

like a real period. Whereas

10:41

Lux had their machine modified to make the

10:44

cramps more intense, with the goal of getting

10:46

people to understand what period pain actually feels

10:48

like. So you're going to peel them

10:50

off this plastic thing, and you're going to apply them

10:52

directly to your skin where your ovaries would be. The

10:55

way Lux's machine works, you place

10:57

two sticky pads where your ovaries are, or would

10:59

be, which is lower than you think. Those

11:04

pads are connected by wires to a

11:07

handheld machine, which then triggers a cramp.

11:10

The machine goes from 1 to 10. Lux

11:12

says most women who have tried the machine

11:14

say their normal period pain is around level

11:17

7, some a little lower, some much, much higher.

11:21

I watched 100 people get hooked up to the machine

11:23

over the course of two days. When

11:26

Lux cranks the simulator up, women tend

11:28

to be stoic. They calmly

11:30

describe the pain they're feeling. I

11:33

watched one woman on a level 10 say, thoughtfully,

11:35

huh, this

11:37

is what it felt like when my sister ruptured. Whereas

11:40

men tend to sound more like this. Oh

11:43

my god, Jesus Christ, okay enough,

11:45

enough. Fuck me,

11:47

oh my god. Fuck, sorry. I'm

11:49

sorry, I'm sorry that happens to you.

11:52

Whenever a guy was hooked up to the machine, women

11:55

would crowd around the booth to watch. They

11:57

would shout questions at the man. Would you

11:59

still be? be able to go to work, go out with

12:02

friends. Having that thing, would you go to the

12:04

gym? No, no, I wouldn't wanna. I mean, I

12:06

probably could, but it wouldn't be a good day. Another

12:09

woman jumps in. I have to pick

12:11

up kids all day. Would you

12:13

think you could do that? Probably

12:16

not. I don't know. Like, it

12:18

wouldn't be fun for sure. I'd probably just, like,

12:20

wanna sit, watch TV, and not really do much.

12:25

The women badgered and heckled from the sidelines,

12:27

good-naturedly, but still. Oftentimes,

12:30

they would lament to one another that

12:33

the simulator could only simulate cramps, wishing

12:36

it could somehow also trigger

12:38

the headaches, back pain, hormones,

12:40

acne, nausea, depression, everything

12:42

else that comes with menstruation. There

12:45

seemed to be a real pleasure in watching the men

12:47

writhe, a tiny bit of justice, if

12:49

only for a minute. Let

12:58

me just say, I know how all

13:00

this sounds. So binary.

13:03

I don't mean to drag us back to a time

13:05

when we thought of men and women as two totally

13:07

different species. And I'm not

13:09

saying all men acted this way and all

13:11

women acted this other way. There

13:13

are obviously exceptions. Though, honestly,

13:15

as far as I saw, not

13:18

many. To be clear,

13:20

most of the men I met were nice

13:22

and pathetic. They clearly knew what they

13:24

were supposed to say. Of course they believed

13:26

women. Even if other

13:28

feelings slip out sometimes. Why

13:30

do you think your girlfriend wants you to do this? I

13:34

don't know how it feels, so she

13:36

always whines about it. So I gotta test

13:38

it out and see what she's whining about.

13:42

Does wine feel like the right verb

13:44

to you? No. No. They

13:46

actually hurt. Just wait. At

13:49

least half the men who tried the

13:51

simulator did so because their girlfriend or

13:53

wife was dragging them, sometimes literally, over

13:55

to the booth and forcing them to

13:57

try it. And Lexus had a

13:59

number. of couples storm off afterwards. They

14:02

like to guess which couples are gonna break up.

14:04

Yeah, like we had this couple last year. They

14:07

were young-ish, maybe in their mid-20s, and

14:11

she really wanted him to experience it

14:13

because she had endo. Endo, short for

14:15

endometriosis. He was completely dismissive, leading up

14:17

to, and then when he was on

14:19

the simulator, he like pushed through

14:21

it. Like you can see when

14:23

people are like really trying to suppress the experience,

14:26

and so he was really like wouldn't say

14:28

that he was in pain, and they stormed

14:30

off like completely pissed at each

14:32

other. She was like why would you, like why do you have

14:34

to say all those things in front of people, like we could

14:36

hear her. Like what was he saying?

14:38

Well he was saying that she exaggerates, that it's

14:40

not that bad. You know, like if this is

14:42

what you're going through, like there's no reason that

14:44

you can't like do the dishes,

14:47

or like it was like really offensive

14:49

stuff, and it's just sometimes

14:53

you just, you wanna say something?

14:56

Like to the girl you're like, this

14:59

guy is such an ass. So,

15:11

can this humble machine change a man's

15:13

mind? Ewan and

15:15

Kasia are a great test case for this

15:17

question, because they do not

15:19

see eye to eye about her periods at

15:21

all. Ewan's from

15:23

South Africa, Kasia's from Poland. They're

15:26

both in their early 40s, and they're

15:28

the kind of couple that is always talking past

15:30

one another, constantly disagreeing.

15:33

We've been married for 14 years, we

15:35

have two big kids. Well not big, they're 10

15:37

and 7, but yes. Even

15:40

so, there was a real affection between

15:42

them, in a sort of old-timey, the

15:44

old ball and chain, isn't my spouse a real

15:46

pain in the ass kind of way. She

15:49

wants me to stop complaining. Yeah, I think he thinks

15:51

it's a choice we have as women when

15:53

we get really cranky, and I'm like, and

15:55

the choice, it's what it is, and that's

15:57

what it feels like. As long as it's a real...

18:00

It's not going through my stomach. I

18:02

don't think that's how it can feel. Is

18:04

that really how it feels? Is that how it feels?

18:06

This is period pain right now. I'm feeling

18:08

it really crying here. Yeah. Oh

18:11

yeah, this is a period pain. Like, it's really

18:13

deep into you. That's it. Kasia

18:15

eventually convinces you in to get back on the

18:17

machine. Number nine. But quick if I

18:19

say off you off it, huh? No. Yay!

18:28

Yeah. It's

18:30

like giving birth. Is this like giving birth? No.

18:33

All right. You're doing ten now? Ah! That's

18:36

ten. Is that ten? Is that ten? Is

18:41

that on ten now? Yes. Yeah.

18:43

That's a deep pain. Hold on one more and then you'll be done. You're

18:47

squeezing her armour. Yeah, now he's hurting

18:49

me. Yes. You

18:52

know when the pain goes all the way to your back? That

18:55

deep muscle pain that goes into your

18:57

back? That's the period pain. The whole

18:59

time? The whole time continuously, yeah. That's

19:01

not my song. But is that

19:04

how it feels the whole time? That

19:06

really deep pain and it literally feels like... Why

19:08

don't you make a scene about that? Do

19:11

you think this will change the way that you interact with your

19:13

partner? Really? In what way? Well now I will ask

19:15

her, are you having the same

19:18

vibrations as you were? It's

19:21

so tough. So do you feel like you believe her more now?

19:23

Definitely. How come you think

19:26

that you had to experience the pain yourself to believe

19:28

her? To be honest, I just

19:30

feel like mood changes. You

19:32

thought she was just being whiny? Whiny. Ewan

19:36

went from, my wife complains too much about

19:38

period pain, to asking why she didn't make

19:40

more of a scene during her period, over

19:43

the course of five minutes. So

19:46

theoretically, mission success. A

19:49

few days later, the longevity of

19:51

Ewan's transformation was tested. He

19:53

and Kasia were back at home in England and

19:56

Kasia had her period. Two sitting

19:58

on the couch and told Ewan. I'm

20:00

at a level 8 right now." He

20:02

said okay. He understood. Kasia

20:04

told me, if you think he then

20:06

got me a glass of water or a pillow or

20:08

took care of me in some way, that's

20:11

not the husband I have. But he

20:13

acknowledged my pain. And that was new.

20:16

And I appreciated it. I'd

20:25

flown to Calgary to watch men get hooked up to

20:27

the simulator to see what they'd learned about period pain.

20:30

I hadn't planned on learning anything about periods

20:32

myself. I already have one. The figure

20:35

I know about them. But I was

20:37

shocked by how many women offhandedly mentioned going

20:39

to the hospital for their period pain. At

20:43

first, I wasn't sure if I was just way more

20:45

ignorant about period pain than I'd realized, or

20:48

if I was just in Canada, where regular people can actually afford

20:50

to go to the hospital with some

20:52

regularity. It was probably both.

20:55

But there were just so many women in

20:57

so much pain, so much of the time.

21:00

Like this woman Gabby with endometriosis.

21:03

She's 27, just to walk

21:05

with a cane. And she's applied for disabilities since

21:07

the pain is so debilitating. And when

21:10

I met her, she was about to fly to the

21:12

U.S. to pay for her second surgery, which costs about

21:14

$40,000 out of pocket. Lux

21:17

walked Gabby all the way up the scale in the simulator.

21:20

She got to a 9, didn't blink. Okay, do you

21:22

want to try a 10? Yeah. Okay,

21:25

so this is a 10. Yeah,

21:28

it's like, it feels, then you

21:30

can feel a little bit more of the almost stabby's.

21:33

I'm trying to figure out what this is on my pain scale.

21:35

Yeah. I mean, since

21:38

I'm still standing, I would say this

21:40

is probably like a, this is probably

21:42

like my everyday, like a 6. Yeah,

21:44

no, I could definitely function with

21:46

this. When

21:49

I tried the machine, my level was 7, average.

21:53

At levels 8, 9, and 10, I couldn't even speak. I

21:57

was just silently breathing through the pain. so

22:00

much worse than my cramps. And

22:03

watching Gabi casually hold a conversation at

22:05

level 10, I felt

22:07

like I finally emotionally understood the whole

22:09

point of the machine. It's

22:12

easy to think that because you've experienced a piece

22:14

of a thing, that you understand

22:17

the entirety of it. But

22:19

on the spectrum of period pain, Gabi's

22:21

experience is as far from mine as

22:24

mine is from the men. I

22:27

felt angry that I somehow didn't know any

22:29

of this before. And

22:31

when I got home from Calgary, I couldn't stop

22:33

talking about what I'd seen, asking everyone with

22:36

the fervor of a college freshman who just

22:38

learned about feminism, do you

22:40

have any idea how much pain women are asked

22:42

to endure? Before

22:45

this, I think a part of

22:47

me felt like these guys were being kind

22:49

of insensitive dummies, totally unaware of the pain

22:51

of the people around them. But

22:55

I guess I was basically as clueless as

22:57

they were. Aviva

23:05

DeCornfeld is a producer on our show. Act

23:15

Two, Face Your Demons. This

23:19

next story is about a man who wants more

23:21

than anything in the world to be able

23:23

to see people around him accurately, which

23:25

is not an easy thing to do. Our

23:28

producer, Elise Beagle, has the story. Love

23:31

was always important to Jason Wuerbeloff, probably

23:34

the most important thing. As

23:36

a kid growing up in South Africa, he

23:38

often imagined his future partner, what

23:41

the man might look like, how close the two

23:43

of them would be. Jason

23:45

was crossing his fingers for the standard version

23:47

of the love story, the one in all

23:50

the movies. I was looking for

23:52

a soulmate, the one, the

23:54

person who would understand me

23:56

and complete my life and

23:58

allow me to fully... connect with them

24:01

on every level and share

24:03

every detail of ourselves. I

24:06

guess a very Disney way of thinking about

24:08

life. So it felt like good news

24:10

when at the age of 24, Jason met Marius, an

24:14

artist with thick black glasses who proudly

24:16

held Jason's hand in public. This

24:19

was 2008, and Jason

24:21

had recently graduated from university with a

24:24

degree in philosophy. He

24:26

was out on his own trying to get a life

24:28

and he was a small software business up and running.

24:31

And Marius was incredibly supportive, confident

24:33

that Jason would succeed at whatever it is

24:35

that he tried. He looked

24:37

at me like I mattered. And

24:42

I remember him laughing a lot, and

24:44

he had a good laugh, very warm. But

24:47

then one night, pretty early in the relationship,

24:50

Jason had an experience that left him

24:52

deeply shaken. So I remember

24:54

we were sitting at a table

24:57

at a restaurant. It was outside the movies.

24:59

We were gonna go see a movie that

25:01

night. And I remember

25:03

looking at him and I thought

25:05

he was snarling at me. The

25:08

expression on his boyfriend's face. For

25:11

a moment, Jason thought he saw a look

25:13

of pure hatred. It was

25:15

just a flash, but it was unnerving. It

25:18

felt like Jason had seen a glimpse of something

25:20

deeper, like the expression revealed

25:22

some buried inner truth. Jason

25:25

didn't think he'd said anything to offend

25:27

his boyfriend. And there was nothing

25:30

in his boyfriend's voice that was nasty or

25:32

malicious. But the expression, Marius

25:35

looked like someone who clearly meant him

25:38

ill. I

25:40

remember looking at his face and thinking, I

25:42

don't want to be anywhere near this person. He

25:45

feels like a stranger and like he wants to

25:47

harm me, to hurt me. Did

25:50

you say anything to him? Like, why are

25:52

you looking at me like that? No,

25:55

because I thought I must be

25:58

misunderstanding. And I... I

26:01

must just ask him enough questions to find

26:03

out what he's feeling in

26:05

order to understand him differently. And I started to

26:07

ask him questions about how he felt about us,

26:09

about what he wanted from the relationship. And

26:12

he reacted in a very confused way.

26:15

And that was our first fight. Jason

26:18

eventually let it go, and the rest of the

26:20

night was normal. Unfortunately, in

26:22

the days and weeks that

26:24

followed, those brief, menacing expressions,

26:27

they continued. Jason

26:29

kept catching Marius with a malicious look

26:31

on his face, a kind of ghoulish

26:34

snarl. Every time he

26:36

saw it, he felt his heart race. The

26:38

look was almost demonic. It

26:41

wasn't all the time. And usually,

26:43

the look would emerge and then disappear just

26:45

as quickly. So Jason was never

26:47

absolutely certain that what he thought he saw

26:49

was what he saw. But

26:51

still, it upset him almost every

26:53

time. No matter how many

26:55

times Marius told him that he was just

26:58

imagining it, that Marius loved Jason and only

27:00

wanted the best for him, Jason

27:02

found the expressions impossible to

27:05

ignore. We used to fight a lot.

27:08

And it always felt like we had two relationships.

27:12

There was the relationship I had with

27:14

him when he looked

27:16

like someone I could trust and love, and

27:19

the relationship I had with him when

27:21

he looked awful. And

27:24

the relationship felt very chaotic.

27:27

It was good and it was bad and it was good

27:30

and it was bad and it was good and

27:32

it was bad.

27:37

I started to research

27:39

facial expressions obsessively. So

27:43

I read every book I could

27:45

in my university's library. There were

27:47

a few. About facial expressions? Yes.

27:50

That's so interesting. Why?

27:53

And what were you looking for in those books? I

27:56

basically wanted to be able to see

27:58

a facial expression. and

28:00

be able to recognize what emotion

28:03

was underlying it, what the person was feeling. I

28:06

became obsessed with that because what

28:09

I thought he was feeling and what he

28:11

said he was feeling didn't match. So

28:14

I became obsessed with working it out.

28:16

What is it that's on this guy's

28:18

face? ["The Chariots

28:24

of the Sea"] Marius and Jason were

28:26

together for four years until eventually the

28:28

expression problem came to a head. Jason

28:31

says he remembers the exact moment.

28:34

He'd come into a room where Marius

28:36

was working on an art project. I

28:39

just hated the way he looked at me. It

28:42

looked like he was looking at me with contempt. And

28:46

then a few months later, we broke up. It

28:49

was just that particular look.

28:53

It stayed with me. And

28:55

it wasn't only with Marius. This happened with

28:57

other people too, these

28:59

flashes of apparent malice. It

29:02

happened with his mother, some though

29:04

not all of his friends, random

29:07

strangers he encountered in the world. It

29:10

wasn't everyone. It wasn't all the time, but

29:13

it kept happening. So Jason

29:15

started to change his patterns. He

29:17

went out with friends and family much less,

29:20

even created a work life where he could spend

29:22

most of his time alone. He

29:24

just couldn't stand to see the terrible expressions.

29:27

And they bothered him most in the

29:29

context of his romantic relationships, that part

29:31

of his life where he had so

29:33

hoped to find unconditional love and support.

29:37

Jason desperately wanted a healthy

29:39

relationship. And so he did

29:41

the typical thing that people do when they're having trouble

29:43

in love. He consulted experts,

29:46

went to see therapists, one

29:48

after another. I put

29:50

myself into therapy. And what

29:52

did you say to the therapists and what

29:54

did they say to you about what the

29:56

issue could be? I

29:59

said... The person I'm

30:01

dating or this friend isn't

30:04

someone that I can trust isn't someone

30:06

that I can feel close to and

30:09

then the second thing I would say is What

30:12

is wrong with me for feeling like that? Is

30:15

it them or is it me but something's very

30:17

wrong here and I don't know what it is But is it them

30:19

or is it me? And

30:21

what did the therapist tend to say was

30:23

it them or was it you? They

30:27

would find some story to

30:29

tell about that like there

30:31

either was something very wrong with them Or

30:33

there was something very wrong with me wanting someone

30:36

who I had such discomfort

30:38

around This went

30:40

on for 13 years and Jason withdrew

30:42

more and more Every

30:44

romantic relationship ended the same way

30:47

with a look so terrifying Jason

30:49

could no longer stand it in

30:52

fact in one case the look on his

30:54

boyfriend's face was so disturbing Jason

30:56

made him leave that instant literally went

30:58

online paid for an Airbnb and told

31:01

him to pack But

31:04

then about three years ago Jason

31:06

stumbled on the source of this

31:08

problem and Understanding

31:10

what it was made him think about his

31:13

whole life differently It

31:15

started one day when he was on

31:17

this online forum and got into a

31:19

conversation with a woman named Catherine Jason

31:22

described to Catherine his experience with

31:24

faces the strange flashes He saw

31:26

that haunted him for days afterwards

31:29

and Catherine told him that she thought she knew

31:31

what his problem was She said

31:33

the name of a disorder that he'd never heard of

31:35

then told him that to figure out if he had

31:37

it He should purchase this special

31:40

light which allows the user to change

31:42

the color of the light through the

31:44

full color spectrum. I Thought

31:47

she was a bit of a quack to be

31:49

honest. I Thought

31:52

she doesn't know what she's talking about But

31:56

I'll humor her and get these colored bulbs

31:59

for my lights And she said,

32:01

sit in a perfectly dark room with

32:04

no other light sources and put a lamp

32:06

on either side of you so there's no shadows. And

32:09

look in a mirror and change the

32:11

colors on the spectrum and see what

32:13

you see. Now when

32:16

Jason was a kid, and really all through high school,

32:18

he told me he'd felt pretty good about the way

32:20

that he looked. He considered himself

32:23

reasonably attractive. But when

32:25

he was in his mid 20s, that started to

32:27

change. What Jason saw when he

32:29

looked in the mirror was someone whose right eye

32:32

kind of looked at a place and

32:34

was much smaller than the other one. And

32:37

he decided he wasn't very attractive. He was

32:39

kind of a strange looking guy. So

32:42

anyway, Jason sits down in his bedroom and

32:44

arranges the light just like the woman said,

32:46

and then he looks in the mirror.

32:49

And I sort of went around the

32:52

colored aisle. And

32:55

when the color was green,

32:59

my eye was not smaller and to

33:02

the side and higher than

33:04

the other eye. It was where it

33:07

should be on a symmetrical face. How

33:09

did that make you feel? I was

33:11

amazed. I was like I was truly amazed by

33:13

how I looked. And suddenly

33:16

things started to pop into place all of a sudden

33:18

in my head. Because I've always

33:20

had, I don't want to sound

33:22

arrogant, but I've always had a lot of attention from

33:24

other men and I could never understand

33:26

why. Because I thought,

33:29

I don't know what these people are seeing in me,

33:31

but I'm not a pretty person. I

33:33

have a really ugly face. Why are they

33:35

doing this? Which would

33:37

feed into sort of a paranoia about like,

33:39

are they trying to use me in some

33:42

way they can't possibly be attracted to me.

33:44

But suddenly under the green lights, my

33:48

face was not distorted. I

33:50

didn't see the face as it was before

33:52

as a distortion. I thought there was reality and

33:55

I was really shocked.

33:58

I felt thrilled. And I

34:01

couldn't stop staring. But then Jason

34:04

turned to the dial. And

34:06

the opposite color to green on the color wheel is red.

34:08

And I

34:10

took the dial all the way to red, and I

34:13

stared at my face in the mirror. And

34:15

my face became truly

34:18

demonic. I remember it

34:21

was so intense. It

34:24

felt like everything around my face went

34:26

completely black. And

34:28

the change

34:31

that I'd seen in so many

34:33

people over years and

34:35

years and years was concentrated

34:37

and magnified and crystallized on

34:40

my face. And

34:43

I looked so terrible. And

34:47

the difference between myself and the

34:49

green light and the red light

34:52

was so massive. It

34:54

was like a terrifying

34:56

experience. And I switched the

34:58

light off. I couldn't look at

35:00

myself for long. And I cried. I

35:05

sobbed. It

35:12

turned out that Jason had an actual

35:14

neurological condition. There was a name

35:16

for what was going on. It's

35:18

this condition called PMO, Prozo-po-metamorphopsia.

35:24

Say it again? Prozo-po-metamorphopsia.

35:29

That's a lot of, a lot of vowels.

35:34

And it's actually worse than that because

35:36

the particular kind I have is called

35:38

hemmy. Prozo-po-metamorphopsia.

35:42

Not much is known about PMO. It's

35:45

extremely rare. But for

35:47

people with that disorder, facial features distort,

35:49

melting and swelling, until the expression of

35:51

the person is so twisted it looks

35:54

demonic. An exaggerated snarl

35:57

that for Jason was impossible

35:59

to tell. wasn't real. And

36:02

sitting in that dark room, looking at his face

36:04

in the mirror, suddenly the

36:06

last 13 years made

36:08

a certain morbid sense to Jason. So

36:12

that was the very first time that you

36:14

realized that none of this was real, that

36:16

it was all just a projection? Yeah.

36:20

It gives me goosebumps now to think

36:23

about it. It

36:25

felt like the biggest thing of my whole life, bigger

36:28

than anything. Since

36:36

he found out, Jason's been working with

36:39

a researcher at Dartmouth who studies this

36:41

condition, a man named Brad Duchain. And

36:44

looking back, they realized that

36:46

all of his symptoms started after he'd

36:48

had this really bad case of mono

36:50

in his early 20s, right

36:52

before he started dating Marius, actually. So

36:55

they think that that's what caused it. PMO

36:58

seems like it can come on after an

37:00

illness or trauma to the brain. And

37:03

here's another quirk of the disorder. For

37:06

some people, including Jason, the

37:08

distortions are harder to notice if the person

37:10

he's looking at is wearing glasses, because

37:13

apparently glasses interrupt the typical

37:15

way that a face is processed by

37:18

the brain. It's an obstruction

37:20

that kind of resets things. So

37:22

if you wear glasses, you can look

37:24

perfectly fine. But

37:26

even knowing all this, it's

37:28

obvious that it's still surprisingly hard

37:31

for Jason to put aside

37:33

something that he's seeing with his own eyes.

37:36

Jason has literally spent months

37:38

working with researchers, building a

37:40

detailed understanding of his disorder

37:42

and how it changes his

37:44

visual experience. But still,

37:47

emotionally, it's just so hard

37:49

to ignore. Like

37:51

one time, Jason and I were talking over

37:53

Zoom, which is typically a little bit tough

37:55

for Jason, because if he has to look

37:57

directly at a face for too long, then

37:59

he's it'll distort. But

38:01

fortunately, I was wearing glasses. So

38:05

if your face is totally fine now, there's zero changes.

38:07

Because I have glasses on? Yeah.

38:10

So if I took off my glasses, then

38:12

what happens? So

38:15

now your right eye is moving up and

38:17

it's starting to move across. Okay,

38:20

so now this part of your nose is

38:22

getting dark and pushing in. The

38:24

bridge is my nose. This top part of your nose, yeah,

38:26

it like flattens into your face. And

38:29

then this part of your cheek drifts

38:31

out, like bulges out. And

38:34

do I look angry at you? Yeah.

38:41

Yeah. And does it affect the

38:43

way that you feel about me right

38:45

now? Yeah.

38:49

I try not to let it, because

38:52

I know, my conscious

38:55

mind knows that that's not real. But

38:59

my unconscious feels the threat. And

39:02

when I look at a face front on

39:05

intensely for a while, my heart

39:07

rate goes up. My

39:09

voice catches in my throat, it just feels uncomfortable.

39:12

It's not a nice experience. And I just

39:15

instinctively keep looking away and back so that

39:17

I don't have to see it. Here,

39:21

let me put on my glasses. Now I'm

39:23

perfectly fine, right? Totally

39:25

fine, yeah. In fact,

39:27

for me, you're not a different person. So

39:30

like, I feel quite warm towards this person,

39:32

but the other person I didn't really like.

39:41

For all those years, all

39:43

those relationships, Jason had been

39:45

seeing the world through a distorted lens and

39:48

didn't know it. Now that

39:50

he knows, Jason has developed

39:52

workarounds that he didn't have before. Like,

39:55

when he goes out to dinner, he sits

39:57

next to a person, not across from them.

40:00

He also has green lights for his home. All

40:03

of that has eased things, even

40:06

as a partner now. They've been together for a

40:08

while. Do you think

40:10

he's somebody that you could have the

40:12

kind of relationship with that you imagined

40:14

as a child, like? No.

40:18

Because it's hard to live with somebody or? Yeah.

40:22

We did live together for

40:25

a while, for about six months, and it was

40:27

very hard. It's not

40:29

just that faces change, it's that I've built

40:31

up a whole lifestyle

40:34

around that, where

40:36

I go to sleep very late, that I'm

40:38

not around people, that I can spend a

40:41

lot of time by myself. I've

40:43

built up a whole way of coping with

40:45

this, and living with someone

40:48

really undermines a lot of that. And

40:51

it was very hard for me. Do

40:53

you think that you'll ever be able to

40:55

really, really, really trust a romantic partner? Not

41:01

so long as I have eyes. Yeah.

41:05

For the rest of his life, Jason will

41:07

be surrounded by the faces of demons,

41:09

and he says his heart will always

41:11

jump when he sees them, because

41:13

it always, always does. But

41:17

he knows he doesn't have to listen to those warnings,

41:19

that the ghouls that he sees are only projections.

41:23

They mean him no harm. Elise

41:31

Beagle is a producer on our show. Coming

41:37

up, a person finds a way

41:39

to create an almost unlimited quantity of gold.

41:42

What could go wrong? That's

41:45

in a minute from Chicago Public Radio,

41:47

when our program continues. For

41:52

This American Life, I'm Tobin Lowe, in for Ira

41:54

Glass. Today's show, how

41:57

are you not seeing this? Stories

41:59

of people struggling. to agree about what's right in

42:01

front of their faces. We're

42:03

at act three, act three, pump

42:05

it up. So

42:08

in this next story, the fate of

42:10

the entire world is at stake, and

42:12

one person finds himself completely alone, surrounded

42:14

by people who just do not get what has

42:16

to happen. The person

42:18

is our very own David Kestenbaum. And

42:21

the thing that he was trying to do was to

42:23

replace the furnace in his house with a heat pump.

42:26

The furnace he was replacing ran off

42:28

natural gas, a fossil fuel. The

42:31

heat pump, much greener, runs off

42:33

electricity, and can miraculously both

42:35

heat and cool. When

42:38

David saw the federal government was offering

42:40

people $2,000 tax credits to switch to

42:42

heat pumps, he figured it would

42:44

be easy. It was not. David

42:48

here has this guide as to how

42:50

to get your heat pump and tax

42:52

credit. If you want to

42:54

get a heat pump, you'll start with the usual thing of

42:56

asking a bunch of HVAC companies to come out and give

42:58

you estimates. They'll pull up in their

43:01

little vans with the company's names on the side, poke

43:03

around your house, measure some things. You'll

43:05

tell them you want a heat pump. They'll say

43:07

they usually install gas furnaces, and why don't you stick

43:09

with that? You'll tell them you're

43:11

worried about climate change. And you point out

43:13

the heat pump is actually a little cheaper when you

43:15

include the new tax credit. You just

43:18

need to make sure the one they install qualifies for the

43:20

tax credit, which is when they'll tell

43:22

you they've never heard of the tax credit, even

43:24

though it's been around for a year. Undeterred,

43:27

after they leave, you'll go to the IRS

43:29

website because you want to make sure you get

43:31

a heat pump that qualifies. On

43:33

the IRS website, you will find this. Heat

43:36

pumps with a thermal efficiency rating of

43:38

at least 75% qualify. That

43:42

seems simple, except you won't know what

43:45

thermal efficiency rating is, no matter, because

43:47

it turns out this is wrong. You'll

43:50

find out this is wrong from a second IRS

43:52

document, which is very clear. It

43:54

says, in order to get your $2,000, the

43:57

heat pump must satisfy, quote, the energy

43:59

efficiency. requirements in Q1. You

44:02

may wonder if Q1 refers to the first financial

44:04

quarter. It does not. It

44:07

refers to question one for the down in

44:09

the document which says the heat pumps must

44:11

quote, meet or exceed the

44:13

highest efficiency tier, not including any

44:15

advanced tier, established by the

44:17

Consortium for Energy Efficiency that

44:20

is in effect as of the beginning of the

44:22

year in which the property is placed in service.

44:25

This will fill you with despair

44:27

until you see that there is a

44:30

searchable database of equipment that will meet

44:32

the qualifications. That sounds great, but

44:35

there is no link. So you

44:37

google around and find a government website that

44:39

has a link with instructions for how to

44:41

use the database. But the

44:43

link does not load. You will

44:46

wait five minutes for it to load because you figure

44:48

it'll sort itself out. But it does

44:50

not. You try back the next day. And no,

44:53

it really does not seem to exist.

45:00

The only way forward seems to be to look up

45:02

the actual requirements for you to get your $2,000 tax

45:05

credit. You go to the

45:07

Consortium for Energy Efficiency website where

45:09

you will finally find it spelled out. And

45:12

I am gonna have to spell here because these are not words.

45:15

The heat pumps SEER2, EER2, HSPF2, and COP measured

45:22

at five degrees Fahrenheit all have to

45:24

be above certain values. You

45:26

will also learn here, a fact skipped over

45:29

elsewhere, if you are

45:31

in the northern US there are different requirements.

45:33

You'll need a cold climate rated one. At

45:37

this point you will cry because

45:39

how are we ever gonna solve climate change if

45:41

this is what it takes to get one heat

45:43

pump installed in one house? At

45:51

some point in your searches you will find something hopeful. A

45:55

government web page that seems designed for simple

45:57

people like you. It's

46:00

run by the EPA, and it's friendly. With

46:03

iStock-type photos of parents playing happily with

46:05

children on couches, this is where

46:07

you should have been all along. It's

46:09

basically a database with a nice clean design.

46:12

It shows you a giant list of heat pumps. There

46:14

are search filters on the left-hand side. There

46:17

is even a box for tax credit eligible,

46:19

so you check that. And now it's showing

46:22

only heat pumps it says are tax credit eligible. But

46:25

you soon realize there is a problem. It's

46:28

not taking into account the fact that the requirements

46:30

are different if you live in northern states. This

46:33

seems really bad. It should say,

46:35

if you live in the north, only these ones. There

46:38

is a box to check for cold climate certified for

46:40

people who live in the north. But

46:42

if you click that for some reason, it doesn't

46:44

change the search results. You

46:47

will puzzle over this for a long time, and

46:49

finally realize, even though you are

46:51

asking it to show you things that are tax

46:53

credit eligible and cold climate certified, it is

46:56

showing you things that qualify for either, not

46:59

both. Because you

47:01

are a journalist, you will reach out to the EPA

47:03

about this. There will be a

47:05

very awkward 20 minute interview with a public

47:07

affairs specialist named Denise, who will seem

47:09

surprised by this fact that when you click

47:11

on cold climate certified, it still shows

47:14

you things that are not cold climate certified. Denise

47:17

will click and see this for herself. Then,

47:20

another press person on the call will interrupt to ask

47:22

if the whole interview can instead be on background, if

47:24

they can get you someone else to talk to. They

47:27

will not get you someone else to talk to. They

47:30

will not fix the website. Two

47:32

months will pass. They will send

47:34

an update saying they are waiting for a

47:36

possible update from the IRS about which heat

47:38

pumps qualify. You

47:40

do, eventually, buy what you hope is a

47:42

heat pump that qualifies. A

47:44

nice man named Algernon will come over with a crew

47:47

and install it in a few hours. This

47:50

is really nice, he will say. I

47:52

think I might get one for myself. David

48:00

Kestenbaum is our senior editor. Months

48:03

after David talked to the EPA just

48:05

recently, the government did finally fix

48:07

the website. The URL

48:09

is www.energiestar.gov slash

48:12

productfinder slash product slash

48:14

certified dash heat dash

48:17

pump slash results. Then

48:20

you gotta click a couple more times on the right

48:22

things. And then at the end, select the data tab.

48:24

Anyway, good luck. Act

48:30

four, I'm great. Thanks for not

48:32

asking. So

48:34

I swear in every friend group, there

48:36

is that one person who just kind

48:38

of refuses to really internalize anything going

48:41

on in anyone else's life. You

48:43

tell them what's going on, and they're too absorbed in

48:45

their own stuff to see it. You know how it

48:48

goes. Oh, right. It was

48:50

your birthday. You had a kid. When

48:52

did that happen? Oh my

48:54

God, you're in a full body cast. How

48:56

did I miss that? Writer

48:58

Marie Phillips put together a fictional piece for

49:01

us about someone with this very problem. Here's

49:04

Marie. We meet at the

49:06

bar that you chose, 20 minutes from

49:08

your place and an hour from mine. I'm

49:10

five minutes early. You're 25 minutes late. You

49:14

text me that you're on your way and ask me to order you a

49:16

gin and tonic. The ice is

49:18

already half melted when you flop down in your

49:20

seat and say, my God, it's

49:22

been forever. How are you? But

49:25

I can see in your eyes that how are you

49:27

is not a genuine question. It's

49:30

just a piece of perfunctory politeness, a

49:32

chance to give me a sentence or two before we get

49:34

down to the real business of the evening, which

49:37

is talking about you. I

49:40

don't know how this happened. We used

49:42

to share everything. But lately,

49:44

I feel like you've been slipping away from me

49:46

and taking less and less interest in my life.

49:49

So I know that you don't want me to tell you

49:51

about what it's like to still be living with my mom

49:53

in a sketchy suburb of South London that

49:55

you've never visited because you can't reach it on

49:57

the underground. want

50:00

to know about how broke we got, how

50:02

we resorted to selling our possessions on eBay,

50:05

or rather how I resorted to selling

50:07

my mum's possessions with her permission because

50:10

she still finds the internet confusing and

50:12

asks me what her passwords are 50

50:14

times per day. I don't

50:16

know mum, they're not my passwords, why don't

50:18

you write them down? You

50:21

don't want to hear about how I got catfished

50:23

by some guy into selling him our beloved cow

50:25

for some beans. The cow who

50:28

lived in our garden, which contrary to

50:30

what our neighbours say is completely legal, it's

50:32

just that most people don't have one. Anyway,

50:35

I sold her for beans. And

50:40

what would happen if I told you how my

50:42

mum yelled and yelled at me about these stupid

50:44

beans and how I threw them

50:46

in the compost heap and then the next

50:48

day there was a bean stalk that went

50:50

all the way up to the sky? You'd

50:52

probably just hijack the conversation to say that

50:54

you're growing tomatoes this year. If you

50:57

cared, you'd know that my

50:59

garden is north facing and tomatoes won't grow

51:01

there. And I love

51:03

tomatoes, I really do. I'm not

51:07

going to tell you about how I climbed that

51:09

bean stalk because I don't want

51:11

to hear about your triathlon training actually. As it

51:15

happens, there was a land up

51:17

there and a house with a giant living

51:20

in it. But

51:22

I'm going to keep that to myself. You'd

51:24

only ask about what the property values are up in the

51:27

sky and bean stalk land and would

51:29

it be a nice place to have a second home? If

51:33

you really cared how I am,

51:35

you'd read my newsletter and you'd

51:38

already know that when I got to the house,

51:40

the giant said, fee, fi,

51:42

fo, fum, I smell the

51:44

blood of an Englishman. Be

51:46

he alive or be he dead, I'll grind

51:49

his bones to make my bread. You

51:52

obviously didn't read my essay on

51:54

what it was like to be

51:56

misgendered by cannibal. If

51:59

we were still true friends, maybe

52:02

I would trust you enough to tell you how I had

52:04

to hide in the oven, an oven

52:06

that other humans had literally been cooked

52:08

in until the giant

52:10

fell asleep and then

52:12

I stole a bag of gold from him on

52:14

the way out. I don't want a lecture. In

52:17

my opinion it's restorative justice, but

52:21

whatever. Anyway it

52:24

doesn't matter because as you

52:26

were so fond of reminding me I'm terrible at budgeting

52:28

and I came the lot on the real real. Yes

52:32

the gold is all gone so

52:35

I had to go back up the beanstalk. I

52:39

can just picture you stifling

52:41

a yawn as I tell you how I

52:43

went through the whole fee-fi-fo thing again and

52:45

that this time there wasn't a bag of

52:47

gold just a goose that lays

52:49

golden eggs and how I took her instead.

52:52

Do you want to know how she is too? Pretty

52:56

discombobulated at living in South London.

52:58

She doesn't like the traffic noise. Plus

53:01

as it turns out it's quite hard to

53:03

find someone who'll cash a golden egg for

53:05

you and not ask too many questions about

53:07

where you got it. No

53:09

I do not want to hear that

53:11

you have a guy. I still

53:14

remember what it was like when I called the

53:16

accountant you recommended and she told me

53:18

that she doesn't do jobs that small. Geese

53:22

don't lay eggs forever and

53:24

ours has already started to slow down fewer and

53:26

fewer all the time. I doubt

53:29

you care that once a goose has lost

53:31

her fertility she's considered worthless but

53:33

for me hard identify.

53:36

I'm not going to tell you about that

53:38

though because you have no idea how it

53:41

feels to be approaching midlife while childless otherwise

53:44

you would not keep going on at me about

53:46

how you were transformed by parenthood and only now

53:48

do you know the true meaning of love. You

53:52

will never know the beauty of becoming

53:54

close to a bird though

53:57

having said that because

53:59

of the no No more eggs thing, which could happen

54:01

any day now. She will

54:03

not solve our financial woes indefinitely. Plus,

54:07

can you imagine what it's like to be

54:09

financially dependent on a menopausal goose? No,

54:12

I don't think you can. Oh

54:15

by the way, does your husband still run

54:17

that hedge fund? Well

54:19

anyway, I discussed it with my

54:21

mum and we decided that I had to go back

54:23

up the beanstalk. She couldn't do

54:26

it because she has problems with her knees, not

54:28

that you asked how she is. So

54:31

V5 Pho Pham again. That

54:34

little sting of being misgendered for the third time,

54:36

but don't worry about it. And the

54:38

longer the short of it is that I stole

54:40

a talking harp who kept yelling out, Master, Master,

54:42

because he has Stockholm Syndrome or something and the

54:45

giant heard it and chased us down the beanstalk

54:47

and I was freaking out like, this is it.

54:49

I am literally toast, but I got to the

54:51

bottom first and I chopped down the beanstalk with

54:53

my mother's axe and it came crashing to the

54:56

ground and the giant died. But

54:59

why would I tell you that? You

55:02

just missed the point completely and ask some

55:04

irrelevant question like, why does my mother have

55:06

an axe? The

55:08

thing is though, I miss you. We

55:11

used to have so much in common before

55:13

you met your husband and started hanging out

55:15

with his North London friends. I

55:18

remember when we were teenagers and you

55:20

ran away from home. You

55:22

were living in a house share and working as

55:24

a cleaner after school. You

55:27

knew what it was like to go through tough times. Back

55:30

then, you would ask me how I am and

55:32

mean it. I wish

55:34

I could find the right words, the right

55:36

question to remind you of that time, to bring

55:38

you back to me. But

55:41

instead, I take

55:43

a sip from my warm white wine and

55:46

say, I'm fine. How

55:49

are you? Do you

55:51

ever hear from those seven dwarves? Marie

56:00

Phillips. She's the author

56:02

of multiple books, including God's Behaving Badly.

56:05

This piece was produced by Bim Adewunmi. God's

56:09

Behaving Badly Today's

56:45

program was produced by Emanuel Jochi and

56:47

edited by David Kestenbaum. The

56:49

people who put together today's show

56:52

include Sean Cole, Thea Benen, Zoe

56:54

Chase, Michael Komete, Henry Larson, Catherine

56:56

Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan

56:59

Remory, Alyssa Shipp, Frances Swanson, Christopher

57:01

Suatala, Matt Chierni, and Diane Wu.

57:04

Our Managing Editor is Sara Abdurrahman. Our

57:06

Executive Editor is Emanuel Berry. Special

57:09

thanks today to Brad Duchesne. By

57:11

the way, Tig Notaro, who you heard at the top

57:13

of today's show, has a very funny podcast. It's

57:15

called Handsome, and you can listen wherever you get

57:18

your podcasts. You can also check

57:20

out the tour dates at tignotaro.com. Our

57:23

website, thisamericanlife.org, you can stream our archive

57:25

of over 800 episodes for absolutely

57:28

free. This American Life

57:30

is delivered to public radio stations by

57:32

PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks

57:35

as always to my boss Ira Glass. You

57:37

know, we're always talking about the election,

57:39

which voting block might sway the vote.

57:42

Whenever it comes up, he runs into the

57:44

room yelling, Jen! I'm

57:50

Tobin Lowe, back next week with more

57:53

stories of This American Life.

58:01

I said, do you remember?

58:04

Do you remember? Do you remember?

58:19

Next week on the podcast of This American Life, ever

58:22

since she was 11, Marge wanted one thing,

58:24

study abroad in America. Judge

58:27

from all these older kids, you have to do it. You're

58:29

partying every day. You're getting

58:32

five domino pizza foxes every

58:35

day. So she

58:37

begins school in the US, and then a

58:40

war starts back home. And a

58:42

normal year of American high school is

58:44

impossible. This next week on

58:46

the podcast, our new local public radio station.