809: The Call
This American Life
09/08/23
•61m
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One call to a very unusual hotline and everything that followed.
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- Prologue: Ira talks about a priest who set up what may have been the first hotline in the United States. It was just him, answering a phone, trying to help strangers who called. (2 minutes)
- Act One: The Never Use Alone hotline was set up so that drug users can call if they are say, using heroin by themselves. Someone will stay on the line with them in case they overdose. We hear the recording of one call, from a woman named Kimber. (13 minutes)
- Act Two: An EMT learns he was connected to the call, in more ways than he realized. (16 minutes)
- Act Three: Jessie, who took the call, explains how she discovered the hotline. She keeps in touch with Kimber. Until one day, Kimber disappears. (16 minutes)
- Act Four: We learn what happened to Kimber after she called the line. (10 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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Previous Episode
388: Rest Stop
September 3, 2023
•60m
Nine radio reporters. Two days. One rest stop on the New York State Thruway. Stories of people who are just passing through, and the ones who can’t leave, because this is where their jobs are.
- Act One: Host Ira Glass describes scenes from a rest stop on the New York State Thruway, the Plattekill Travel Plaza, and the kind of people you might meet if you ever stayed long enough to talk with them. These include Robert Woodhill, the general manager, who needs a good sales day so he can beat his friend Andy, who manages a rest stop in Maine, in their weekly competition. Ira hangs out with a group of foreign students who’ve landed in Plattekill on a summer work program, and reporter Lisa Pollak gets travel tips from Lenny Wheat, who works at the rest stop’s information booth. Reporter Jonathan Goldstein spends a few hours in the rest stop parking lot. (30 minutes)
- Act Two: More stories of travelers and workers at a highway rest stop. The competition between Plattekill and Maine continues. Reporter Sean Cole observes the lunch rush at the rest stop’s busiest restaurant and stumbles into a behind-the-scenes romance. Reporter Gregory Warner watches a cashier at the Travel Mart deal with an angry customer. Reporters Nancy Updike and Jay Allison hang out for the graveyard shift – midnight to 8 a.m. – and find a surprising amount of romance at the rest stop. (26 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Next Episode
810: Say It to My Face
September 17, 2023
•63m
Friends and ex-friends finally talk about the one thing between them they've been avoiding.
- Prologue: Host Ira Glass tells a story he’s never told anyone before, about something someone said to him. (4 minutes)
- Act One: Gabe Mollica had something important he needed to discuss with his friend — stewed about it for eight years. But rather than go to that friend, he talked about it with everyone other than that one person. (28 minutes)
- Act Two: Jasmine and Gabbie are best friends. BFFs! But there’s something major that they’ve never been able to talk about. Something so important that it makes them wonder, who does this person even think I am? (23 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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