You can divide all living creatures into two camps. We humans are in one camp, along with lots of other things like dogs and birds and trees and caterpillars.

A story by regular contributor David Sedaris involving his sister Lisa, a secret, and her very understanding parrot. David read this story live, and it's on his CD Live at Carnegie Hall. The story is also published in his book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

Aimee Bender reads her story "The Rememberer," about a woman whose lover is undergoing reverse evolution. One day he's a man, the next, a salamander.

Nubar Alexanian was forced to give up one thing—and then gave up another thing by choice. This story was put together by Nubar and his daughter Abby, with help from Jay Allison, for Transom.org, with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Jonathan Goldstein with a story of the kind of preferential treatment we all dream of, where waiters routinely bring us extra appetizers on the house, delivery men throw a little something special into our take-out orders, and deli owners regularly comp us free pickles and chips. He talks with his friend Howard, who lives this dream, about all the work that went into making it a reality.

For millennia, people have tried to reach a spiritual promised land by fasting. Jesus did it.

When she was three years old, Georgia was caught by immigration officials when a Milwaukee woman tried to bring her into the country illegally from Jamaica. She ended up at a residential detention center in Chicago.