Jonathan Goldstein with a story about friendship, mothers and sons, and what some have called the greatest phone message in the world. Jonathan is the host of the podcast Heavyweight.

Ira Glass speaks with a woman named Angie, who never understood why her dad got so excited about thermoses and phone books... until she happened to see this one movie.  Then Jonathan Goldstein tells a story about his friend Josh Karpati, who has two-year-old twins, and who never leaves the house. Jonathan hosts Wiretap on CBC Radio.

In this act, we hear from the rowdier, drunker late-night patrons of the Golden Apple. A guy walks in with two young women, hoping to go home with one of them.

Chicago writer/musician Rennie Sparks, a member of the independent band The Handsome Family, reads "Skanks," a story of a girl struggling in a situation where some rules are strict, but other rules are up for grabs.

 

A story by Cheryl Trykv, read by the author in front of a live audience at The Hothouse, illustrates what it means when the sinner makes no attempt to seek forgiveness.

Writer Quincy Troupe talks about how, as a boy, he idolized Miles Davis, and how, as a man, he actually became one of Davis's closest friends. And how his picture of the man changed.

Sara Blaisdell tells the story of a group of Iraqi brothers whom her husband Sam befriended over the internet, and has been speaking with weekly for almost seven years. Their surprisingly intimate relationship has pulled Sam into a world that few Americans can access.

Host Ira Glass talk with Claire, who obsessed over a Chilean friend — and then started to tell people she was Chilean herself.

Bob and Dave were close childhood friends — until their relationship began to lead their peers to believe that it might be more than a friendship. The accusations led to Dave turning on Bob.

What happens when the kid next door wants to be your new friend...and comes over, tries to talk to you, befriends your dog. Are you a bad person if you don't want to accept the tiny hand of friendship? Cheryl Wagner tells the story of her young, persistent next-door neighbor.

Sarah Thyre reads author David Sedaris' "The Last Time You'll Ever Hear from Me," a story of the ultimate Machiavellian scheming.

Ira talks to historian Ted Widmer about two of the first pen pals in the New World. John Winthrop and Roger Williams were both Puritans in Massachusetts in the 1630s.

Rich Carlson and Tom Swenor, two best friends in Michigan, got so fed up with the political process in the country, they decided to form their own Tea Party chapter in Petoskey, Michigan. But as election season revved up and push came to shove, Rich and Tom had very different ideas about how to advance a conservative agenda.

Reporter Ashley Cleek talks to one Russian protestor in the middle of re-evaluating one of her oldest friendships. (15 minutes)

Dishwasher Pete on Letterman.

Ira's good friend Mary Ahearn died this week. She was thirty years older than him...so, decidedly more grown-up than he.

This American Life regular contributor Davy Rothbart talks about the time a friend asked him to make a decision for her that she really had to make for herself: Whether she should have an abortion. Davy is the founder and publisher of Found Magazine and author of a book of short stories, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas.

Jonathan Goldstein interrogates the girls, now grown up, who terrorized him and his classmates years ago in school—and finds they can be just as scary as ever.

How much can you trust whether somebody who you think is close to you really is close to you? Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.’s been thinking about that question since a recent visit with some of his childhood friends in Sierra Leone. (37 minutes)

Ira talks to a woman about a childhood friend of hers who mysteriously shows up after decades, for reasons that are only revealed as their correspondence unfolds.

David Sedaris has this instructive tale of how, as a boy, with the help of his dad, he tried to bridge the chasm that divides the popular kid from the unpopular — with the sorts of results that perhaps you might anticipate.

Starlee Kine was becoming friends with a woman named Robin when they started to encounter an obstacle, a common obstacle people run into when the become friends as adults.

We hear kids recorded at Chicago's Navy Pier and at a public swimming pool discussing their mean friends. And Ira Glass interviews Lillie Allison, 15, about the pretty, popular girls who were her best friends—until they cast her out.