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Full episode
175: Babysitting
Act Two

In The Event Of An Emergency, Put Your Sister In An Upright Position

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The story of several huge companies that accidentally got put into the babysitting business in a big, big way because of snow on December 26, 1988. Every year on the day after Christmas, divorced kids all over America fly from one parent to the other. In 1988, lots of them got snowed in at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. Susan Burton and her little sister were among them. (9 minutes)

This story was turned into the 2006 movie Unaccompanied Minors.

By

Susan Burton

Song:

“Minimum Wage Nanny” by The Simpsons

More in Children

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860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
May 23, 2025

Act Three: There Will Be Questions

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) This is an excerpt from Mike Birbiglia’s special, “The Good Life.”
839: Meet Me at the Fair
Sept. 6, 2024

Act Two: How Bad is Your Bunny? 

What life lessons can kids learn at the 4-H rabbit competition? A lot. (11 minutes)
821: Embrace the Suck
Jan. 19, 2024

Act Two: The Dream Police

When producer Ike Sriskandarajah tries to sleep-train his baby, a neighbor decides to call the police.

More by Susan Burton

View all
804: The Retrievals
June 30, 2023

Act One

Susan Burton introduces some of the many women who went to a Yale fertility clinic for IVF treatment, and charts their experience from hopeful beginning to excruciatingly painful egg retrieval.
804: The Retrievals
June 30, 2023

Act Two

Often bypassing logic, the women go to great lengths to construct elaborate stories to make sense of their inexplicable pain.
742: The Thing I'm Getting Over
July 23, 2021

Act 1: Naked Lunch

Susan Burton is a couple years into recovery from the eating disorder she’s had for decades.
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