We conduct an experiment to test whether being nice actually pays by equipping two waitresses with hidden microphones to record their interactions. Each waitress is instructed to be super friendly with half of their tables while remaining aloof with the other half. We then compare the tips to see which approach was more profitable.

The story of an FBI sting that involves gangsters, G-men, and lots and lots of people who want to work in the movies. It's adapted from an article by Elizabeth Gilbert that first appeared in GQ magazine.

Every day each American produces 4.8 pounds of garbage. Where does it all go? Ira talks with Robin Nagle, a anthropology professor at New York University who's been studying garbage,and says that most of us want garbage to be invisible.

David Rakoff tells a story from when he was a kid, about the day he realized the he would inevitably be viewed a certain way by his classmates, no matter what he did or said.

Susan Drury reports from Tennessee on a test that provides sudden truth from a stranger. It's based on a science whose goals could not be grander—to aid in the fight between good and evil.

Mystery and missing flavor at the hot dog plant.

Producer Alex Blumberg bought a stock on a tip in 1997. By 1998 it was worthless.

Ira and his friend Danielle, whose family says they're eating fish when in fact it's turkey or chicken, for an unusual reason.

Host Ira Glass goes to a busy Target store one week before Christmas. Most shoppers he talks to don't think any of their gifts will be returned.

This American Life senior producer Julie Snyder found herself in a ten-month battle with her phone company, MCI Worldcom, which had overcharged her $946.36. She spent hours on hold in a bureaucratic nowhere.

Chuck Klosterman talks about the time he MacGyvered his way out of one of the worst situations a boyfriend can find himself in.

Host Ira Glass talks with Michael Beaumier, who runs the personals section of the Chicago Reader, and who functions as a kind of guardian angel for many of the singles who advertise in his paper.

Sarah Vowell tells the lost story behind a patriotic song, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." An early version of the song celebrated an American terrorist. She's accompanied by Jon Langford and the band.

Robin Epstein visits people who define this thing called love—for a living. She attends the annual convention of the Romance Writers of America.

A story by John Hodgman about returning to the beach after a very bad year.

John Hodgman tries to tell the real version of a war movie that's already been written, filmed and released on DVD—Star Wars.

In the 1960s, the adventures of "The Greatest Crimefighter the World Has Ever Known"—Chickenman—were heard on hundreds of radio stations. On today's show, the winged warrior flies again.

Host Ira Glass talks with sailor and researcher Captain Charles Moore about a gigantic area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as far away from land as you can get, that is filling with plastic trash. There are five spots like this on the world's oceans.

A two minute play called “Title,” written and performed by Greg Allen and Heather Riordan of the Chicago group, The Neo-Futurists.

Anthony Swofford reads an excerpt from his memoir, Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, about his experience fighting in the first Gulf War in 1991, as a Marine sniper.

We try to figure out the paradox of the current economy, where more and more Americans are simultaneously both losing jobs and buying new homes and cars. Host Ira Glass talks to Ernest Istook, Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, who supports both a balanced budget amendment and President Bush's proposed budgets, which will create record deficits.

Someone sits next to the printer. You see him forty times a day.