Carin Gilfry explains how she once accidentally locked herself in a hotel closet, and because today’s show is being broadcast from an opera house stage, Ira is able to take the story to a place he never usually can.

Reporter Anna Sale tells the story of the high profile politician who came to her with an issue that had nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with him. Instead it had everything to do with Anna and the state of her love life.

Susan Zalkind spent six months investigating all this for Boston Magazine and This American Life. And she has a personal connection to the 2011 triple murder.

Producer Stephanie Foo speaks to Nasubi, a Japanese comedian who, in the 90s, just wanted a little bit of fame. So he was thrilled when he won an opportunity to have his own segment on a Japanese reality TV show.

Brian and Bianca go to a WakeUpNow conference to try to figure out what the company really is. WakeUpNow does something called "network marketing," which Brian points out, is a very bland term for something completely mind-blowing.

ProPublica's Jake Bernstein tells the story of Carmen's first months at the New York Fed, and how she came to start recording.

About 20 years ago, a group of educators launched one of the biggest recent experiments in American education when they started creating charter schools designed for poor, minority kids. The idea was to create classrooms that are rigorous and strict.

Susan lays out her theory of what the truth is in this case. And she explains what we still don’t know.

Writer Domingo Martinez tells a story from his memoir The Boy Kings of Texas, about when he was forced to face how he might look in 20 years, if he kept doing what he was doing.

A woman in Springfield Oregon named Angela Jane Evancie tries to get her boyfriend, sleepy grad student Morgan Peach, to wake up during finals week.

Sarah Koenig tells the story of the murder of Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior in Baltimore County, Maryland. She disappeared after school one day in January, 1999.

Before the war in the East Ramapo, New York school district, there was a truce. Local school officials made a deal with their Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors: we'll leave you alone to teach your children in private yeshivas as you see fit as long as you allow our public school budget to pass.

Writer Ben Loory has a short story about the 180 none of us can escape. It’s from his collection, Stories for the Nighttime and Some for the Day.

Gene Cooley had just suffered a huge tragedy, and he was trying to move on. But suddenly anonymous posters started saying horrible things about him on a website called Topix.

Lots of us have things about us that we keep to ourselves. Mike Anderson had something like that, something he kept secret even from his wife, until the day the truth came out.

Ira finds out more about what Eric and Charlotte Kaufman’s sailing trip was meant to be, how prepared they were for such an extensive trip, and exactly what went wrong on their sailboat that led to the dramatic rescue for which they were so roundly criticized.

This next story is about a couple in a relationship that’s unlike the homes either of them grew up in. They’re married.

Producer Sean Cole tells the story of a former foster kid who was finally adopted in his mid-30's,and the reason he was taken away from the foster family he loved more than 20 years ago.

Ira plays audio of a phone call recorded by Ryan Block, who became Internet-famous after he posted audio of himself trying to cancel his Comcast account. Then Ira talks with David Segal, writer of the Haggler column in the New York Times, about getting the backs of consumers who need a champion.

There's one group of people that is universally tarred and feathered in the United States and most of the world. We never hear from them, because they can't identify themselves without putting their livelihoods and reputations at risk.

When Elna Baker was a kid, she hit her younger sister on the head with a broom, then lied and said it was an accident. So Elna’s dad held a family trial to find the truth.

We start out exploration of discipline and schools at the very beginning … in preschool. Tunette Powell is a writer in Omaha and mother to JJ and Joah.

Producer Chana Joffe-Walt talks to a woman named Karen Stobbe and her husband Mondy about a plan they've recently enacted in their family. Karen's mother lives with them and she has dementia.

Susan’s investigation continues, and she tells the story of a third person who was close to Ibragim Todashev who was whisked out of the United States after actions by the FBI.