A show about people who are suddenly confronted with who they are. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Guest host Aviva DeKornfeld tells Ira Glass about breaking into a community pool as a kid, and the split-second decision that has haunted her ever since. (4 minutes)Act One: Some people are great in a crisis. Others, not so much. Does that mean anything about who we really are? Tobin Low investigates. (10 minutes)Act Two: Aviva DeKornfeld has the story of Leisha Hailey, who was certain she had the next million-dollar idea. (11 minutes)Act Three: Comedian Mike Birbiglia talks about the questions his daughter asks him and how trying to answer them showed him surprising reflections of himself. (15 minutes)Act Four: David Kestenbaum tells the story of the suspicious disappearance of multiple shoes and a woman determined to explain it. (8 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Chapter 1: What early experience haunted Aviva DeKornfeld?
Hey there, podcast listeners. Ira here to announce that I am helping kick off the Tribeca Festival with a live event in New York City on June 10th. That's Tuesday night, June 10th. I'm going to be on stage with Ira Madison III, the host of the podcast, Keep It.
What we're going to do is we're going to take a little eras tour through 30 years of This American Life, visit different periods of the show with clips and stories. Tickets are on sale now at tribecafilm.com slash thisamericanlife. Again, that is tribecafilm.com slash thisamericanlife. If you're in New York, I hope you can come out. I think it's going to be fun.
A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
From WBEC Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass, and I am joined in the studio right now by one of my coworkers, Aviva de Kornfeld.
Hi, Ira.
Hi there. And so you're here to tell us a story.
Yes. It happened probably when I was 11 or 12. I was with my older sister, Ora, who's probably 14. And our cousin, Jake, who's 16 or so, he was visiting us. And one night we decided it would be fun to sneak into the community pool, which is just a few blocks away from our house.
The community pool was closed.
Yes, it's probably midnight. Our parents are asleep. We'd never snuck in. So we're walking to the pool, and I actually didn't even want to sneak into the pool. I was scared, but I just, the bliss of being included with the older kids as the younger one very much overrode my reservations.
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Chapter 2: What does it mean to be a selfish person?
She was suddenly and violently throwing up. He said he thought of helping, but instead snatched the blanket off of her, threw it over his head, and ran out of the room. He said the smell was too terrible. Did it change you in some way?
Um, no. No, I would say no. But I was... A bit embarrassed, like ashamed, that I didn't step up to the plate a little bit better. In my defense, like, it was extremely, extremely gross.
To be fair to Jonah, I don't know that I would have stuck around for a repeat appearance of Bison's sloppy joes either. Though there was a small pattern developing in my search results, a recurring theme of boyfriends making the quote-unquote wrong decision, but not doing much differently afterwards. I wish I could report that it's going to change from here on out, but here we go.
A lot of times, it was the girlfriends who wrote in to tell us what happened. There's Jana, who lived in bear country. One afternoon, a black bear charged. And what did her boyfriend do? He ran for his life, leaving Jana to fend for herself. A similar thing happened to another woman, but instead of a bear, it was a charging bull. Did you dump that guy right after it happened?
Oh, absolutely not, no. They stayed together for five more years. And surprise, surprise, he was a jerk the whole time.
It ended very tragically and heartbroken for me, which is funny looking back on it because it was like, he was a really bad boyfriend.
Talking to all these people, my search was coming up empty. Nobody seemed to be changing their behavior. They felt guilt, shame, embarrassment, sure. But actually changing? Not so much. Then I talked to Becca. Becca is a pharmacist who lives in Chicago. Her story happened while she was on a medical mission trip in Ethiopia. Her and her team were there working at a local clinic.
It was the end of her stint. She was headed back to the airport from the village she had been working in. There was Becca, a paramedic, and this older volunteer couple, Frank and Sue. Before their flight, they sit down for a meal at a restaurant. They're starving. Everyone else gets burgers. Becca orders a plate of spaghetti.
And, like, Frank just becomes unresponsive a little bit at the table. Like, he didn't faint. He just was sitting there staring into space. And breathing heavily. And I just thought he was dehydrated. And I was like, Frank, here, drink this. Like, our food's here. And I'm, like, so excited to eat. And then he's not responding to his wife. Like, she's like, Frank, Frank.
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