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Prologue
A Good Year For Grand Gestures
Miriam and her husband were development workers in Afghanistan. They'd had a whirlwind romance themselves, so when they heard that their driver was in love, but didn't have enough money to propose to the girl, they made a grand romantic gesture: They gave him $10,000 to pay for the dowry and the wedding. It was a move they probably should have known wouldn't work out so well. Gregory Warner reports. (16 minutes)
Part Of Me, Why Not Take Part Of Me?
Chaya Lipschutz, an Orthodox Jewish woman from Brooklyn, donated her kidney to a stranger. After that, she decided to spend all her time trying to match up potential donors with kidney patients. It's incredibly hard to make a match, and for a year, she had no success. Then, she gets her first break: Her brother's going to donate. For Chaya, a single, middle-aged woman who was supposed to get married decades ago like everyone else in her community, being a kidney matchmaker has become an obsession. She needs this surgery to succeed. Reporter Mary Robertson and This American Life Producer Sarah Koenig recorded Chaya and her brother as the transplant date approached. (19 minutes)
Babies Buying Babies
Elna Baker reads her story about the time she worked at the giant toy store, FAO Schwarz. Her job was to sell these lifelike "newborns" which were displayed in a "nursery" inside the store. When the toys become the hot new present, they begin to fly off the shelves. When the white babies sell out, white parents are faced with a choice: Will they go for an Asian, Latino, or African-American baby instead? What happens is so disturbing that Elna has a hard time even telling it. (16 minutes)