Gloria Harrison was pregnant and in labor when she decided that the thing she needed to do before heading to the hospital, was go to the Nissan dealership and buy a new car.

Producer Lilly Sullivan talks trash with writer Rachel Connolly about people neither of them know.

Growing up, producer Stephanie Foo was the favorite child of her family in Malaysia. Particularly of the matriarch of the family who everyone called "Auntie." But as an adult, Stephanie found out the complicated truth about why she was the family favorite.

Host Ira Glass goes with Ashli Lewis to a San Francisco psychic to find out if a longstanding prophecy about her is going to come true in 2010.

Ira talks about those ephemeral, thrilling radio moments that you happen to catch in passing on stations far away that you never find again. Flipping through the channels.

Scott Carrier visits a courtroom where teenagers are tried and convicted by their teenage peers in Tucson, Arizona.

Claudia Perez returns to talk about her year from a more personal perspective.

Bim talks to poet Ross Gay, whose book inspired today’s show, about the discipline and rigor of seeking and holding onto delight.

The stories of undocumented people so often sound cliche. Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio has heard all of them, and thought she could do better.

Vauhini Vara lost her sister when she was in college. Even though Vauhini’s a writer now, she’d never really been able to write about her sister.

Our senior editor David Kestenbaum introduces us to someone who is literally running around the block as a way to solve one of his problems. David tries to figure out why it works.

Marie Phillips reads a short story involving an aloof friend, a goose, and some extreme gardening. (7 minutes)

David Rakoff picks a fight with a hit Broadway show.

When Chris Gethard was attending a run-down Rutgers University in the late 1990s, another student down the way—at a university called Princeton—became his nemesis. This is the title story of Chris's book A Bad Idea I'm About to Do, which comes out in January.

David Beers explains the gorgeous, modern vision that drew his family, and tons of other families, to California, and then what happened after they arrived.

We hear from Kwaneta Harris, a former nurse incarcerated in Texas, who is constantly asked for medical advice by her neighbors. (17 minutes)

A group called NO/AIDS heads into bars to offer free HIV testing for high-risk people. Writer Nathaniel Rich tells the story of one man's test.

Sarah Vowell tells the story of Page Smith and Eloise Pickard Smith. They were married for over five decades, and died a day apart.

A story about Christmas at Juvenile Court by Chicago novelist/editor Reginald Gibbons.

For years, producer Lilly Sullivan has wondered what goes on beneath the surface in the mind of one of her good friends and co-workers, Diane. This week, she tries to get to the bottom of it. (11 minutes)This was the story director Greta Gerwig gave to Margot Robbie, while Robbie was trying to figure out how to play Barbie.

Some powerful and well known men lost their jobs after #MeToo. But what about the women at the center of all this who’ve been way less visible after they told what happened to them? We hear about big and small ways the aftermath of coming forward continues to pop up in their daily lives.

Alex Blumberg takes us to an American classroom where students are reading a classic, The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter. The book is marketed as a simple homespun autobiography of a Cherokee orphan.

David Rakoff died on August 9, 2012. He’d appeared on This American Life 25 times, first in 1996, during the third month of the show; his last appearance was just a few weeks before he died.

Dante Nero has been involved in this group for years, since before it even had a name. He’s seen its evolution.