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Podcast Episode Summary
This American Life - Episode 873: Got You Pegged
Overview In episode 873 titled "Got You Pegged," host Ira Glass presents a collection of true stories centered around the theme of making snap judgments about others. The episode features various contributors sharing personal anecdotes that illuminate the pitfalls of assumptions and misinterpretations in everyday interactions.
Episode Breakdown
Prologue
- Story by Amy Roberts (Duration: 8 minutes)
- Amy recalls an embarrassing incident at a children's museum where she was mistaken for a developmentally disabled child, leading to a series of awkward interactions.
- The episode uses Amy's story to introduce the theme of assumptions and misunderstandings.
Act One
- Story by Richard Price (Duration: 12 minutes)
- Richard shares a real-life encounter during a ride-along with police officers in New York City.
- The story highlights racial and social prejudices as the police stop a Black man riding a bike with a white child, illustrating societal biases and the complexity of making quick judgments.
Act Two
- Story by Nancy Updike (Duration: 6 minutes)
- Nancy discusses the challenges a pregnant woman named Kim faces while selecting adoptive parents for her child.
- Kim must judge prospective parents based solely on one-page letters, which leads her to make quick, often flawed assumptions about them.
Act Three
- Story by David Rakoff (Duration: 6 minutes)
- David critiques the Broadway musical "Rent," expressing his disdain for its portrayal of artistic life and the romanticization of poverty and struggle.
- He argues that creativity requires more than just the lifestyle depicted in the show.
Act Four
- Story by Shalom Auslander (Duration: 22 minutes)
- Shalom recounts a vacation experience where he becomes convinced that a neighboring guest, Marvin, is an imposter.
- His obsessive need to prove Marvin's falsehoods leads to a comedic but profound exploration of human connection and understanding.
- Ultimately, Shalom learns about Marvin’s past, including his survival of the Holocaust, which challenges his judgments and prejudices.
Key Themes and Takeaways
- The Dangers of Assumption: The episode emphasizes that making quick judgments can lead to misunderstanding and conflict.
- Personal Narratives: Each story showcases individual experiences that evoke empathy and reflection on our own biases.
- Connection and Misconnection: Interpersonal relationships can be strained or enriched based on how we perceive others, highlighting the complexity of human interaction.
Conclusion The episode "Got You Pegged" serves as a reminder of the importance of understanding and compassion towards others, as well as the potential pitfalls of making snap judgments based on limited information. Through humor and poignant storytelling, the contributors illustrate the multifaceted nature of human experiences and interactions.
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Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28This message comes from Capital One. You can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Okay, as adults, it's pretty rare to have a moment where you're talking with somebody in your own country, in your own hometown, in your own language, and you have no idea what is actually happening. When things become confusing and not in that, oh, what did he mean by that sort of way, but in an I love Lucy, how did I get myself into this situation kind of confusion. Like, for example, Amy was back home in Indiana on a break from college, And she was accompanying her brother's high school class on a trip to this health and science museum they have in South Bend called the HealthWorks Kids Museum.
1:05And just to give you a sense of who the characters are in this story, Amy's brother is autistic and he is developmentally disabled. If you had to picture Ben, I would say picture this really handsome star athlete looking guy who sort of has an age of maybe five to eight years old and loves dinosaurs. As for Amy, aside from the fact that she's very close to her brother, you can get a good sense of who she is by the conversation that she had with Ben's teacher on the bus with all the developmentally disabled kids driving to this museum. Amy was talking to the teacher about her schoolwork, which frankly seems very, very hard.
1:42Amy was majoring in physics and studying in Germany. In Germany, not only were the classes in German, but we were also using all of these graduate textbooks. But she was really nice, and she just listened to me the whole way over. So they get to the museum, and after some videos and some science experiments where they blow things up, it was time to walk around the exhibits. So during all of this, one of the things that they had been really pushing, they had these new computers that were installed. They were computers designed to walk kids through making a really neat identification card. And they were all really excited about this.
2:16I think they must have just gone live the day before we came because they were all just, make sure you use our ID computers. You know, we're so excited about this and you get to print out your ID and pick it up at the front desk. And so when we walk out onto the actual museum part, my brother and I walk around and he shows me some of his favorite exhibits. And this staff member comes up to me and he says, have you made your ID yet? Now, for a second, it seems a little weird that he would ask one of the adults to make an ID card. But he may figure it's new. They're excited for everybody to try this thing, kids and adults.
2:51So her brother ambles off, and she sits down and starts answering the questions on her computer screen. And the guy doesn't go away. He keeps finding ways to help her. Then it occurred to me, oh, well, maybe he's hitting on me a little bit. Which would make sense, but the help that he's giving her keeps getting stranger and stranger. He's giving her instructions for things that no fully functioning adult would ever need instructions for. And Amy wonders, does he think that she is one of the developmentally disabled kids who are wandering all over the museum? But at the same time, Amy thought it was completely obvious that she wasn't.
3:25The way she moved, the way she expressed herself. And the guy's manner, his tone of voice, was unmistakable. He talked to her like a peer. I mean, I almost wonder if maybe that was why I was almost paralyzed with confusion. it's really rare to meet people who don't use some kind of special voice with the mentally disabled. This slightly higher pitched, slightly I know you're a special person kind of voice. So it was just, it was so strange. And then, luckily, the very next question that comes up on the computer screen is one that Amy realizes can resolve all of this confusion. Once and for all, definitively, for the both of them.
4:08So the question is, type in your age. Okay, so I'm 21 years old at the time. So I'm thinking, I can type in 21 and he'll realize that I can't be a student. And we can just both pretend like we understood what was going on this whole time. So I type in 21. And he looks at me and he looks at the age and he says, oh, Amy, you know, if your age is a number that ends in teen, then that number starts with a one. So he just assumes you've typed wrong. Yeah. But I haven't. So at that point, I decide that instead of saying, okay, actually, I am 21, and then letting that fold out however it would have, I erase what I typed.
5:04And I type in 18. Why? Ah, I don't know. I mean, I thought, how many more questions could there possibly be? I've already told them, you know, everything about myself, how much I weigh. And I thought, well, this is just going to be a couple more questions. And then it'll take a photo of me and then I'll be done. And then he'll never have to know. He's a stranger. You're in a museum. Like, this will be over in like a minute. You can walk away. Like, who cares? Exactly. I felt like it was the lesser of two evils at that point.
5:38But she is not near the end of the questionnaire. Far from it. It continues for pages and pages. Then there's a set of paragraph length questions which require actual concentration. And while I'm fast as I can, I'm skimming these questions, trying to get through these. He starts reading them to me out loud, word for word. And I'm sort of melting into my chair and I'm thinking, this is too much. This is way too much of a deception. I have to somehow stop him. So I did. I said, oh, I can read. And he looks at me. He puts his hand on my back. And he says, your parents must be so proud of you. So as you might imagine, I'm working really hard to skim through these questions.
6:34I'm a blur of activity. I'm just trying to get through these questions so I can get out of this room and escape. And as I'm working through these questions as fast as I can, I see my brother's teacher walking towards me. And she says, hey, Amy, how's it going? And you're thinking like, oh, my God, what's going to happen? Oh, oh, yeah. And then it happens. He points to me and he says, again, voice full of admiration and pride. And he says, Amy was just telling me that she can read.
7:13And how does the teacher take this news? Oh my gosh. So this teacher who I'd been complaining to about these graduate level classes in German.
7:26She looks at him and she says, of course Amy can read.
7:36And then the truth pours out. There begins a flurrying of apologizing on all sides, Amy apologizing to the guy, the guy apologizing to Amy, both of them, she says, clutching their own hearts as they do this. Turns out he's so careful not to talk down to developmentally disabled students because he himself had a learning disability. And so she had misread what he was doing and why he spoke the way he did, and he misread who she really was. And in this case, it both discovered the truth, But just as often, people meet and walk away and never straighten this stuff out. They assume. They get it all wrong.
8:12And that is the subject of today's program. From Chicago Public Radio, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's show, I've Got You Pegged. Stories of people assuming all kinds of things about other people, usually in error. Our show today in four-accident is quite a lineup. Richard Price, David Rakoff, Shalom Auslander, and Nancy Updike. Stay with us.
8:43Support for This American Life and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. When we think about the people we love, sometimes it's not the big things that we miss the most. It's the details. What memories will the people you love cherish and remember once you're gone? Dignity Memorial helps families create meaningful celebrations of the lives of the people who mean everything to them. where the details aren't just little things. They're everything. To find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. Support for This American Life comes from GoodRx. Cold and flu symptoms got you down?
9:17Find relief with GoodRx. You can save an average of$53 on flu treatments. Plus, save on cold medications, decongestants, and more. Easily compare prescription prices and instantly find discounts of up to 80%. GoodRx is not insurance, but works with or without it and could beat your copay price. Save on cold and flu prescriptions at GoodRx.com slash T-A-L. This is American Life. Today's show is a rerun. Act one, the fat blue line. We begin today with a story about something that happens all the time in all kinds of places, something that is so common that it's not even big enough to make it on the local news.
9:57Richard Price tells the story, the novelist and screenwriter. He often writes about cops and crime. He wrote Cockers. He wrote Sea of Love. He wrote for the TV show The Wire. He told this story on stage at The Moth in New York back in 2008. He describes it as a tale taken from real life and dramatized. In the last novel I wrote, I spent a lot of time on the Lower East Side. And as is my want, I wound up in the back of police cars a lot. And Lower East Side is a very low crime area right now. It used to be the worst, but Giuliani and real estate pressure took care of that. And now they basically have nothing to do down there in terms of crime.
10:39So what they do is they sort of sit in fake taxis, you know, four beefy white guys sit in a fake taxi by the side of Williamsburg Bridge, and they eyeball what's coming over from Brooklyn. and if the car looks like a$200 shitbox or somebody's got an afro or a ponytail, they pull up, pull in behind the car and they wait to see if the guy's going to go all polite in his driving, like put on lane change signals and they know he's dirty. And, you know, so worse comes to worse. You know, it's fishing, really. It's a big fishing hole, Delancey Street. and so I spent all night in this bogus taxi with about 850 pounds of white beef and it's the end of the night they made their collars and there are two cops up front and I'm sitting in the back when I ride with these guys I don't really comment about what they do I don't engage them in any kind of debates it's like I'm there to bear witness and then see what I can do with it in my work.
11:50Anyways, they're riding up Essex Street. It's kind of Miller time.
11:57And as they're going up, they pass a black guy about 30 years old with dreads on a bicycle. And on the crossbars, he's got a white kid about 9, 10 years old. And the black guy and the white kid, they're kind of chatting. the kids looking up at the guy you know they look like they're sort of familiar with each other and the cops drive by and they're dead silent after about a block one guy says to the other hey big guy does that look fishy to you he says it's fucking midnight what's going on here well what do you want to do big guy so I'll tell you big guy make the light pull over let's see what's what so they pull over, bike's coming up Essex one of the cops steps in the road puts his hand down and says hey how you doing get off the bike please and the black guy gets off the bike and he goes hey officers it's an unexpected treat hi what's up and and he says do you ever hear of helmets oh yeah gee I'm really sorry at which point the other cop says to the little white kid says hey big guy what's your name he goes um Noah Rosenberg you know like he's not sure and he says hey Noah come here buddy come on over here and he separates the two and I'm sort of hopping in between the two conversations at this point and the black guy tries to follow the white kid and the other cop puts his hand on his chest and he says no you stay over here let me see some ID he says what some ID he says don't look at him look at me he says no I was just picking him up from a play date did I ask you that no no you don't I worked the bar at Schiller's.
13:43Again, did I ask you that? Well, no. He says, why are you trying to divert me? Go down the same road as me. He goes, okay, okay. And he gives him the ID, and at which point he sort of waves to the kid, and he goes, oh, what did I just say to you? He says, no, no, I'm really sorry. It's Noah. He's kind of wound a little tight. He says, oh, really? He says, have a seat. He points to the curb, and he makes the guy sit on the curb with his feet in the gutter. and he says, so where are you going? He says, well, I had the late shift and he says, it's kind of late to be driving around with a kid on a bike, isn't it?
14:16At which point I leave those two and I go over to Noah and the other cop and he says, so, your name's Noah, huh? And the kid says, yes, and for the millionth time I don't have an ARC.
14:28And the cop says, well, you must get that a lot. The kid says, oh my God, you have no idea. And he says, so Noah, how old are you? He says, well, next week I'll be a decade old. I said, well, that's great, great. And where do you live? He says, 333 Avenue B. He says, and you go to school around here? He says, yes, I go to the earth school. And he says, oh, cool. And who do you live with? He says, I live with my mom. And she goes, who's that over there? He says, well, I don't know who your friend is, but my friend is Cleve. And he says, oh, do you know what Cleve's last name is? He says, yeah, Carter.
15:03Cleve Carter. Sometimes I call him Coca-Cola. Sometimes I call him Carbon Copy. he says oh do you know him for long i said well yeah like one one and a quarter years he's kind of like my godfather since my other godfather died oh and um uh what do you guys do well he was taking me home from a play date uh to my mom says so he knows your mom and he says well yeah he and my mom are kind of like friends i says well kind of like well they have like sleepover dates? And he says, so your mom knows that you're with him now? She says, well, my mom sent him to pick me up. You know, my dad lives in Woodstock.
15:41I says, okay, at which point I'm going, okay, let's see what's happening with Cleve. I walk over there and Cleve's sitting on a, he's sitting on the curb and he's got his feet out there and he's trying to make it look like it's natural. So he's like massaging his like deep thigh muscles, like he's limbering up for the marathon or something, It's just humiliating as shit. And he's kind of smiling because you can't win. You've got to play through. And he's sitting there, and the other cop is hitting his driver's license with a mag light, one of those big, powerful flashlights. And he goes, so, Cleveland, I see you're from Ohio.
16:15And he says, yeah. He says, Cleveland from Ohio? He says, well, actually, it's from Oxford. And the guy goes, oh, Miami College. and he goes, yeah, yeah, that's where I went. And the cop goes, oh, Wally Zerbiak, who was this big basketball player. And he goes, well, yeah, Wally was a little before my time. So, oh, do you play ball for them too? He said, well, not basketball, I played soccer. Oh, that's amazing, because I teach soccer. I coach soccer out on the island, you know, in the kids' league. And he says, you know, that's amazing. I keep waiting for that sport to blow up, but I don't think it's, you know.
16:48And Cleveland's going, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. You know, sitting, you know, just wiping his... At which point, a Mustang comes by with two black guys in it and up Essex and the guy in the shotgun seat looks out the windows and he sees Cleveland sitting on a curb and he starts yelling out, homeboy to base, homeboy to base, we got a black man down. I repeat, a black man down. And he's like laughing his ass off and the Mustang floors it. You know, Cleveland's kind of squinting and he's kind of looking the other way. He's just like mortified, you know. And then hopping back to the other cop with the kid, he says, so Noah, does Cleveland live with you?
17:33He goes, no, Cleveland lives at 444 Avenue D. We live at 332 Avenue B. He says, well, you ever been over to his house? He says, only about a million times. He says, mostly with your mom, I guess, huh? He says, and by myself? He said, oh, really? what do you do there? He says, well, you know, sometimes we walk his dog. It's a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Mars. And one time he tried to teach me how to make scrambled eggs, but I don't really like his oven because you like the pilot match and it goes, you know, and it scares me. And he says, one time, you know, my mom had to go to court in Woodstock and I stayed with Cleveland for three days.
18:15And he said, in court, huh? He said, yeah, three days? He said, yeah. he said but mostly I'd say 82 and a half percent of the time we watch television you and you and Cleveland yeah me and Cleve he goes and the cops said to him do you ever do anything else with him and he goes what what do you mean he goes do you do anything else with him and all of a sudden the kid's eyes get really big and kind of like wet, like steel. And the kid starts kind of like, kind of like breathing kind of heavy and the cop starts shaking a little bit. And the cop says to him, he says, hey Noah, look at this. And he pulls his jacket back and he shows him his detective shield on his belt.
19:02He says, you know what that is? He says, yeah, it's a police badge. He says, you know what this means? He says, what? He says, that means you can tell me anything you want and you'll be perfectly safe. Do you understand that? And the kid looks at him and he goes, and he goes, oh my God, are you going to arrest him? And the cop, his heart's pumping Kool-Aid and he starts moving over and he says, why? And the kid goes, if you fucking assholes arrest him again one more time, just because he's black and I'm not, I'm going to kill myself. You came into my apartment and dragged him out because a crazy lady next door said he was a rapist.
19:39You put him in handcuffs. when he came to pick me up at school. You pulled him away from me at the street fair and made me wait for my mom. I said, I swear to God, I'm going to lose my mind. And the cops go, whoa, easy, easy, easy. At which point, both cops are looking at each other like, well, what's going on? And all of a sudden, Cleveland sees the kid's losing it. And he goes, hey, Noah, buddy. And the cop goes, what did I just say to you? Stop talking to the kid. And at which point, Cleveland says, officer, you want to put this to rest? I tell you what, I'm reaching for my cell phone in here.
20:10he says why don't you call why don't you call the kid's mom and you know just see what's going on he says I'll call the kid's mom he says what's her name she goes Adina and he calls across to the other cop get the kid's mother's name and the kid through sobs is going Adina and Cleveland gives the cop the mother's number the cop calls and he says hey how you doing and this is Sergeant Daly from the 7th Precinct. Who am I speaking to? And she goes, oh, my God, Adina Rosenberg, what happened? He goes, no, another thing happened. I just need to know, do you know where your son is right now? At which point she freaks.
20:51Where is he? What happened? He's supposed to be with Cleveland. He's supposed to be taking him home from a play date. What happened? What happened? What happened? Well, no, no, no, he's fine. Okay, at which point the kid goes, my mom says if I get any more nervous, I'm going to have to live with my father in Woodstock, you fuck. You know, and the cop's going, you know, and the cops going, no, no, no, the kid's great, the kid's fine. You know, it's the only thing, it's like they were riding without helmets, you know, and it's a serious safety violation. It's just going, oh, my God. Oh, Jesus. He says, no, no, no, okay, don't worry about it.
21:24All right, all right, all right. Good night, have a good night, you know, and he hangs up, at which point they bring Cleveland and Noah together again, and they give him this half-assed lecture on bicycle safety, and he says, you know, I'm supposed to write you up, but I'm going to give you a pass this time. Cleveland's still kind of smiling, but the smile doesn't go past here. It never reaches his eyes. He gets back on the bike, and the kid gets on the handlebars, and the kid's going through that post-crying jag shutter withdrawal, and Cleveland's kind of talking him down as he sort of pushes off, and they go, disappear up Essex.
21:59We get back in the police car, and I'm sitting in the back. I'm not saying a fucking thing. and they go in dead silence for about two blocks and one cop finally says to the other, he says, you know something, big guy? And the other guy says, what's that big guy? He says, still feels fishy to me. And the other cop says, hey, we gave it a shot, man. That's all we can do. Thank you.
22:28Richard Price has got his novels called Lazarus Man. This story is recorded by The Moth, which, of course, is a podcast with all kinds of stories like the one you just heard at themoth.org or find it wherever you get your podcasts. Act two. Yes, no, or baby. Well, there's a simple road designed to help us all fight the urge to pigeonhole other people based on a first impression. And I speak, of course, of don't judge a book by its cover. But this axiom, this adage, this maxim, is deeply flawed, and not just because of its annoyingly scoldy self-righteousness. The fact is, there are times in life where you must judge a person based on woefully little information crammed into some cover letter or something like that that they have put together.
23:15One of our show's producers, Nancy Updike, visited somebody in this very judgy situation. Anyone who's not a megalomaniac feels daunted by the prospect of having to separate a group of strangers into a yes pile and a no pile. Kim Schwery is seven months pregnant, and she's facing, on her coffee table in Seattle, dozens of one-page letters from couples who want to adopt her baby. Individually, each letter seems like not enough information. And collectively, they are way, way too much. The first time she read through them, they melted into an indistinguishable mass of thoughtful, intelligent, fun-loving, mutually supportive, healthy, active, outdoorsy couples.
23:57A lot of the hobbies are similar, just hiking, you know, couples from the Northwest too, I'm sure that's common. So, like even just this page, you know, hiking, snowshoeing, camping. And if you turn to the next page, is there also a hiking part? Let's see, probably. Oh yes, hiking, there you go. Kim's doing an open adoption, which means that she will have a relationship with the family who adopts her child. for the rest of her life. The cover letters are just the beginning of a long, long process. The whole thing is sort of like super high stakes online dating. Judging people is required. Kim goes back and forth between practical considerations and pure gut checks.
24:44Here's something. This couple has another child and, you know, they're talking. I don't know, they use kind of like child talk when they're talking about him. like it says something about kissing his boo-boos or something, and that kind of, you know, I don't know. I don't like that very much. Kim ends up liking a different couple that already has a little boy. She likes the idea that her baby would have a sibling. She weeds out a family that seems to her too religious, and later she frowns on a couple who both have high-powered jobs that they write about at length. She wonders if they'd be home enough for the baby.
25:22These guys, I could see them, you know, working 50, 60 hours a week because of their careers. A few pages later, Kim makes a face when a couple says they're relational people. I'm wondering exactly what that meant. Like, there's this whole packet of information, and then, like, I'll focus on this sentence that maybe I don't like. And that makes me feel like I'm really kind of judgmental when I do this. And sometimes, you know, that doesn't always feel good. See, and this is something really small, but for some reason it says the opportunity to have a relationship with the child's biological heritage is very important, including medical history.
Read the full transcript
26:04That feels kind of weird to me. It's a little clinical. Right, it is a little clinical.
26:11I want to be more than medical records. So that kind of put you off right there? Yeah. It goes back to that judgmental thing, you know, because, I mean, I've written things and maybe that's not how they meant to portray themselves, but it does, like you said, sound very clinical. Yeah. Just like Kim's having to quickly peg these families, extrapolating all sorts of important things from just words on a page and a few pictures, she's finding that as a single woman, pregnant, people are making all kinds of assumptions about her. Coworkers assume she's married and starting a family. those are awkward conversations.
26:47And if she tells someone what's really going on, that she's putting the baby up for adoption, she better be prepared for a lecture. I mean, you're really kind of vulnerable when you're pregnant and you're kind of, you're vulnerable to judgment, I guess. You know, people are very prone to once, you know, you say what you're doing and they tell you what they would do and not do. And they want to be like, oh, I think you're going to be really upset. And I think this, and I'm like, no, I think maybe you're the one who's upset, not me. She says some people are utterly convinced that adoption is just a bad idea all around, which Kim takes personally since she was adopted.
27:26It's one of the reasons she didn't want to get an abortion. People feel that if you're adopted that you have this great sense of loss or you just don't know who you are and there's some identity, you know, there's an identity crisis and you feel abandoned. And, um, you know, that's not how I felt with my experience. Um, being adopted, being adopted. Exactly. You know, I felt very loved by my parents. Um, like the baby's father told me that he thought that, I don't know why he said this, but you know, he said that, or he kind of assumed and said this, that, you know, he was so much closer to his parents than I was to mine, you know, which isn't true at all.
28:10And it's just, you know, that's how he felt things must be. I waited till just about the end of my interview with Kim to confess that I'd had her pegged all wrong before I spoke to her. I thought she'd be a teenager, confused. But Kim is 27, has her own apartment, a good job. Right, I'm in a situation where it would be very feasible that I would raise the child on my own. So it's probably harder to understand. Okay, so people are making that judgment about you. What, what don't they know about you that would make them understand? I don't know. I kind of have this unusual kind of circumstances that, you know, I was engaged and my fiance passed away.
28:56And after that, you know, I kind of think I was lonely and looking for, you know, someone, and I feel like I made a mistake, you know, and I'm, you know, I still miss my fiancee and think about him all the time, and I just, you know, I don't feel like I'm emotionally ready to write as a child you know i feel like i feel like i could but i just feel like it's not the right time and you know especially if it's you know if it's something that that you that you guys talked about doing together and here you are right exactly i mean we're always gonna have kids together and you know here i am you know like single and pregnant with some guy you know he's just kind of insignificant fellow um you know and it certainly isn't things aren't going in the way that, you know, they were supposed to or as planned.
29:58Kim doesn't go into her reasons with most people, so they make assumptions about her that she doesn't bother to correct, and she flips through dozens of letters from couples and makes assumptions about them that they'll never get a chance to respond to. It's the way of the world. Everyone's a judge, and everyone's the accused. And every day, things aren't going the way they were supposed to. or as planned.
30:26Nancy Opdyke is one of the producers of our program. Act three, isn't it romantic? Our show today is about people jumping to conclusions about what others are like. And what we turn to now is corny, stereotyped ideas people have, and in this case, put into Broadway shows. The story is about a kind of iconic, old musical, the show Rent. And when that show came out in the 1990s, one of our contributors, David Rakoff, was not a fan. That show, maybe you've seen it or you've seen the movie, was about New Yorkers in their 20s. David Rakoff had been a New Yorker in his 20s during the same era depicted in that show.
31:08And he thought the play made some mistakes. There are 525 ,600 minutes in a year. I learned that from watching Rent.
31:25From watching Rent, I also learned that the best way to mark the passing of these 525 ,600 minutes would be to measure them out into something Jonathan Larson, the writer of the musical, called Seasons of Love. What does that even mean, Seasons of Love? In Rent, the characters live out their seasons of love in huge lofts. Some of them have AIDS, which is coincidentally also the name of a dreaded global pandemic that is still raging and has killed millions of people worldwide. In Rent, however, AIDS seems to be a disease that renders one cuter and cuter.
32:02The characters are artists, creative types. They have tattered a million clothes. Some of them are homosexual, and the ones who aren't homosexual don't even seem to mind. They screen their calls, and when it is their parents, they roll their eyes. They hate their parents. They are never going back to Larchmont. No way. They will stay here, living in their 2 ,000 square feet of picturesque poverty, being sexually free and creative. here's some ways to broadcast creativity in a movie start plinking out a tune on a piano scratch a few notes on some music paper plink some more suddenly crash both hands down on the keyboard then bring them quickly up to your head and grab the hair at your temple screaming it won't work or sit at a typewriter reading the page you've just written realize that it's shit and tear it from the platen and toss it behind you cut to waste paper basket overflowing with crumpled paper.
33:02Here's what they do in rent to show that they are creative. Nothing. They do nothing.
33:09They hang out. And hanging out can be marvelous, but hanging out does not make you an artist. A second-hand wardrobe does not make you an artist. Neither do a hair-triggered temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, nor even HIV. I hate to say it. None of these can make you an artist. They can help. But just as being gay does not make one witty, you can suck a mile of cock. It does not make you Oscar Wilde. Believe me, I know, I have tried. The only thing that makes you an artist is making art, and that takes the opposite of hanging out. So when they sing the anthem of the show, that's a lie, really.
33:50Every song in the show is an anthem, delivered with adolescent earnestness. It's like being trapped in the pages of a teenager's diary. So when they sing the title anthem of the show, we're not going to pay this year's rent, followed by a kind of barked cheer of rent, rent, rent, rent, rent, rent, rent. My only question is, well, why aren't you going to pay this year's rent? It seems that they're not going to pay this year's rent because rent is for losers and uncreative types. Rent is for suits. By contrast, they have the last bastion of artistic purity. they have not sold out, and yet their brilliance goes unacknowledged.
34:28So fuck you, yuppie scum. I know what it's like to feel angry and ignored. I lived in Brooklyn a long time ago, about a block away from a prison. During the day, the neighborhood bustled with lawyers, judges, criminals, bail bondsmen, private detectives. I lived on a block in a little two-story building that had once been a coach house in the 19th century, and the basement had a red dirt floor. on the ground floor below me was an office that did what exactly? Resumes? I can't remember. What I do remember is the man whose office it was. Raul was knee-bucklingly handsome. If my life had been different, like, I don't know, if I were like a hot girl with a driver's license, I could have put on a tube top and gone outside to wash my car in slow motion or something, but alas.
35:24Once during the day, it must have been the weekend because I was at home, I could hear Raoul having sex in the office downstairs. I skittered around my apartment like a cockroach on a frying pan, trying not to make any noise while desperately looking for a knothole in the crappy floorboards. Eventually I just lay down flat against the tile of the kitchen floor, listening. Lying flat against the tile of my kitchen floor listening to someone else have sex is essentially my 20s in a nutshell. I was robbed in that neighborhood twice and there were days when it hardly seemed worth it to live in a horrible part of town just so that I could go daily to a stupid, soul-crushing, low-paying job.
36:08Especially since as deeply as I yearned to be creative, for years and years I was too scared to even try, so I did nothing. But here's something that I did do. I paid my fucking rent.
36:26The late David Rakoff, his essay about the musical Rent, appears in his book Half Empty. But really, you can't go wrong with any of his books. Coming up, proof that some people simply should not go on vacation. They can't hack it. They cannot handle the mellow. That is in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. Support for This American Life comes from BetterHelp. Most FSA dollars expire at the end of the year, so it's time to use them or lose them. With BetterHelp, you can invest those funds in taking care of your mind with online therapy. Join today and you can be matched with a licensed therapist in as little as 24 hours.
37:07Visit BetterHelp.com to get 10 % off your first month. Support for This American Life comes from Mint Mobile. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no hidden fees. Plans start at$15 a month. Make the switch at mintmobile.com slash American. That's mintmobile.com slash American. Upfront payment of$45 required, equivalent to$15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Support for This American Life comes from EasyCater, a business tool for food, helping organizations order food for meetings and events from favorite restaurants, with search tools for dietary needs, budget per person, and more.
38:01EasyCater also offers employee lunch programs, tools for managing food spend, flexible payment options, and simplified expense reporting, plus 24-7 live support, all on one platform. Learn more at easycater.com. It's This American Life, America Class. Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's program got you pegged. Stories of people making grand assumptions about other people, sometimes correct, sometimes deeply incorrect. Today's show is a rerun. We've arrived at Act 4 of our show, Act 4, Paradise Lost. Shalom Al-Sander has our story.
38:41I ruin vacations. That's just what I do. In Greece, I was sure the hotel had stuck us with the worst room in the building, even though every room was identical. I know that because we switched three times the day we got there. We switched again the morning after, and went home two days early. A year later, I spent four days in a Jamaican rainforest, complaining about the weather. We're in a rainforest, my wife said. So? So it rains. We went home two days early.
39:21And so last year, when my wife informed me that she had booked us a six-day vacation in Anguilla, a remote island in the British West Indies, I decided that this time would be different. It was our first trip in a while, and I'd been doing a lot of work on myself. With the money I'd spent on therapy, I could have bought the whole damn island of Anguilla, so I was anxious to see how far I'd come. The resort was far more expensive than we could afford. I suspected that my wife was hoping that an exclusive resort would minimize the number of disappointments that could inevitably set me off. There was no need for her to worry.
39:56This time would be different. This time, I would be different.
40:05The resort we flew to sits tucked away on the eastern end of an utterly pristine inlet of blue-green water on the southern tip of the island. The bellman brought our bags into our room, warned us not to feed the iguanas, wished us a happy stay, and left. My son started jumping on the bed, my wife joined him, and I pulled open the wooden-louvered patio doors that led out to the beach. Wow, I said as I stepped out onto the patio. For once, the view looked exactly as it had on the website. Pelicans circled above the calm, still waters. The owner's golden retrievers slept peacefully in the shade beneath a gentle, spreading palm.
40:46My wife came up behind me and put her arms around my waist. It's Eden, she said. Paradise, I answered. Not a cloud in the sky, she said. Not a single cloud, I said. And then she went inside. When I came in, she already had her beach bag packed and was pulling a t-shirt over our son's head. We're going to the beach, she said. You coming? I'll come down after I unpack, I said. They hurried out the door, dropped a cracker for the iguana waiting in the shade at the bottom of the steps, and headed down to the beach. I quickly put away our clothing, grabbed the room key, and locked the patio door as I closed it behind me.
41:30Hello, said the old man. He was standing at the foot of our patio, holding onto the rail for support. Oh, hello, I said. His name was Marvin, and he'd been coming to the resort for 25 years. Oh, 25 years at least, he said. Maybe more, such a long time ago. Let's see, I'm 81 now. Yeah, the first time I came here was in, oh, let's see, 1980, I believe. Really, I said, backing my way towards the beach. Here's the thing about people. I don't really like them. That's why I find racism so curious. There are so many reasons to dislike people. You're going to go with color? So I avoid the people whenever possible.
42:18Try to keep my distance. It's really better for everyone.
42:28Could have been 1982, Marvin continued. Or maybe even 1978, now that I think about it. No, no, it was 1980. I remember because I was arguing with my wife about Reagan. Oh boy, did she hate him. Uh-huh, I said. I looked toward the beach and could see my wife and son running down to the water with his pail and shovel. Well, I better go. Family's waiting for me and all. She's dead now, he said. He gently cleared his throat and looked to the ground. Damn it, I thought. I'm sorry, I said. She was a good woman, he said. I nodded. I'm sure, I said. Hotel was very different back then, of course, Marvin continued.
43:15Very, very different. The restaurant wasn't where it is now, no sir. That building wasn't even built until 1990 or so. Maybe 92, even. A fellow named Jeremiah built it with his own two hands. By gosh, nobody builds like that anymore. As Marvin rambled on, I began to wonder, was there any way I could switch rooms without upsetting my wife? But I stopped myself, pulled myself together. Not this time, I thought. We are having a pleasant vacation.
43:53Is that your wife? Marvin asked. Yeah, I said, waiting for me. She's beautiful, said Marvin. Yeah, I said, well, I better skedaddle. My wife was beautiful, too. Uh-huh, I said with a wave. Well, I'll see you later. Marvin waved back, walked up the steps of the villa directly adjoining ours, took out his key, and walked inside. The door closed, and the expectorating began. Cough, cough, cough, cough. Grr! Grr! Grr! Damn it, I thought.
44:38The trip had exhausted our son, so we had an early dinner and went for a short sunset stroll on the beach. Thanks, said my wife, putting her arm through mine. For what, I asked. For being so good about things. I smiled and squeezed her arm. Our son ran through the gentle surf and shrieked with joy. Soon he grew tired, climbed into my wife's arms, and we reluctantly climbed the patio steps back to the room. Good night, said Marvin. He was sitting on his patio next door. Good night, whispered my wife. Where in New York are you from? Asked Marvin. Upstate, she whispered as she carried our exhausted son into the room.
45:20I spent a lot of time there, said Marvin. Hudson Valley, I think it was. Might have been the Catskills. Yeah, I think it was the Catskills. My wife and I used to take our kids up there when they were younger. Okay, I whispered. We don't talk much anymore. My kids, I mean, not my wife. She's dead. Sure, I whispered. Well, good night. I closed the door behind me and locked it. Jesus Christ, I said. You okay? asked my wife. I'm fine, I said with a smile.
45:58We put our son to bed, crept quietly out the back door, and lay down together on the lounge chair underneath the stars. I love you, said my wife. I love you too, I answered. Came the sound from next door.
46:20We lay there a while longer, holding hands in the cool tropical night breeze, watching the shimmering lights of long-dead stars, and pretending we weren't listening to an old man drowning in his own phlegm.
46:42I awoke the following morning in a dark mood. I didn't want my wife to see it, so I crept out of bed, quietly dressed, and went for a walk. I made my way to the open-air restaurant that overlooked the sea and sat down for an early breakfast. Okay, I thought, so there's an old man next door. Was that worth ruining our whole vacation? I'd worked too long and too hard on myself to be derailed by this. I decided to view Marvin as some sort of a test. Maybe it was God's test. Maybe it was just fate. But I was stronger than Marvin. I was stronger than a thousand Marvins. He would not defeat me. I finished my breakfast and walked back to the room.
47:26Good morning, said Marvin. He was sitting at his patio table, finishing his breakfast. Good morning, I said. A lovely day, isn't it? Oh, it is, he said. Mornings like this, my wife and I used to get up early and go for a long swim. That sounds nice, I said. She's dead now, he said. Hey, I said, who isn't? That's true, said Marvin. I looked out over the beach and smiled. Check and mate, Marv. I was unflappable.
48:08Auschwitz, said Marvin. I turned around. Sorry? My wife. She died in Auschwitz. We were quite young, only married a few years. Auschwitz, I said. Marvin nodded. We were sent to Dachau at first, but after a few weeks, they sent us to Auschwitz. Auschwitz, I said. Sure, my mother too. She was sent to Bergen-Belsen, but that's not where she died. She died in Auschwitz, with my father. Probably a pneumonia, that's what I heard. My father was shot. The Nazis shot him. I know this from some people in Miami who knew him in the camps. Ethel and Morris Goldstein. They died a while ago. I should have been compassionate, I know.
48:55I should have taken a pad and pen and committed his story to paper for future generations. But I didn't. Instead, I seethed. Twenty minutes of genocide stories later, I went into our villa, closed the door sharply behind me, and stood in the center of the room with my hands on my hips. What? asked my wife. I threw my hands into the air. Auschwitz, I said. Pardon? Auschwitz. What are you talking about, she asked. Ow freaking Schwitz. He's a survivor, hon. A Holocaust survivor. I don't have anything against Holocaust survivors. Some of my best friends are Holocaust survivors. Okay, that's not actually true, but I don't have anything against them.
49:44But if I want to relax and forget about life for a while, maybe hit a bar and have a drink, I'm not going to call Elie Wiesel. Hey, Ellie, how's it going? I had a tough day. Why don't you come over and watch Schindler's List? Bring beer.
50:03A Holocaust survivor, I said, pacing back and forth across the room. The place is half empty, and the guy next door is a Holocaust survivor. I think I've been pretty good about this. I didn't let the travel upset me. I didn't let the hacking next door all night long get to me. But this is too much. It's too much. I'm standing in paradise talking about gas chambers. My wife was sympathetic, but she'd seen this before and insisted I was blowing it out of proportion. As usual, she said. And I said, what's that supposed to mean? And she said, you know what that means. And I said, no, I don't. And less than 24 hours after our plane touched down in Eden, we were fighting.
50:51It's your decision, she said to me as she gathered her beach things together. He's not ruining our vacation. You are. No, I'm not, I shouted. Goebbels is. Blame Goebbels. She walked out and stomped down the patio steps. My son began to cry. A dozen iguanas sat on the deck. Two of them ran inside and hid under the bed. Damn it, I thought. I spent the next few hours avoiding my wife, hoping that a little time would settle things down between us. I took my son and walked over to the front office. Did you feed them? The man asked. We told you not to feed them. They're in our room, I said. They're under our bed.
51:36I heard laughter coming from the lobby and poked my head around the corner. Marvin was sitting in a wicker chair surrounded by a half a dozen adoring hotel employees. A waiter from the bar brought him a rum punch. Let me pay you, said Marvin. No, no, Mr. Marvin, said the waiter. No, no. If there's anything worse than hating someone, it's discovering that everyone else loves them. Oh, Mr. Marvin, an attractive female chambermaid cried. He's terrible. The man at the front desk smiled in Marvin's direction. What a sweet man, he said, and then shook his head. And what he's been through.
52:21At dinner that evening, Marvin sat at the resort owner's table. My wife and I sat nearby, barely talking. Marvin told funny stories, and everyone laughed. Marvin told sad stories about the Holocaust, I guessed, judging by the horror on the face of his dinner companions, and everyone hugged him. And when the bill came, and Marvin reached for it, Again, they refused to let him pay. That was when I decided, with absolute certainty, that the son of a bitch was faking it.
53:00Holocaust survivor my ass, I thought. I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community. I've known Holocaust survivors, okay? And they don't go on and on about it. Elie Wiesel doesn't go on about it. Marvin was no Holocaust survivor. He was just an old chatterbox looking for a meal ticket. There's no such thing as a free lunch until you tell everyone sitting next to you at lunch about your stay in Bergen-Belsen. Marvin was faking. I was sure of it. And I was equally sure that if I could just prove that to my wife, all would be forgiven. And I knew just how to do it. We came back from dinner, and I put my son into his pajamas and read him some stories.
53:42My wife sang him some songs and put him to bed, and after that, she put on her shoes and said she needed to take a walk. Fine, I said. Good, she answered. Great, I said. Whatever, she replied. I went outside, sat down on the patio steps, and watched the ocean, hoping it would calm me down. Suddenly, I heard a groan coming from Marvin's patio. I stood up, peeked over the fence that separated our two patios, and saw him asleep on one of his lounge chairs. This was my chance. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, went over to his patio, and crept up the stairs. He rustled, and I froze. After a few seconds, I tiptoed over to where he was sleeping.
54:32His left arm was propped behind his head, but his right arm was stretched out along the arm of the chair. Bingo. I made my way back to our room and waited anxiously for my wife to return. A few minutes later, the front door opened. Well, well, well, I said as she came into the room. Well, well, what, she asked. Well, well, well, I guess Mr. Auschwitz isn't such a survivor after all. What are you talking about, she asked. I held my arm out and pointed to my forearm. No numbers, I said with a smile. At last I'd gotten a clean look at his forearm, and no numbers. What? asked my wife. No numbers. If he was in the Holocaust, where are the numbers?
55:24Her face dropped. What did you do? she asked. What? What did you do? I didn't do anything. Did you ask him to show you his numbers? Bloody hell, Shaw, did you ask him to show you his numbers? I didn't ask him to show me his numbers, I said. He was sleeping. She pressed her fingertips against her eyes and shook her head. And why, exactly, would he lie about being in the Holocaust? Why, I asked. Free stuff. They pay for all his meals. They probably pay for his room. He's faking it. This is ludicrous. Why would he pick the Holocaust? What's he gonna say, baton death march? It was a hike, get over it.
56:09You want free stuff, you go with Holocaust.
56:21Which arm, she asked. What? Which arm did you check? I paused. The right one, I said. She looked at me. They tattooed the left? She nodded. And they didn't tattoo everyone. How do you know? My neighbors were survivors, she said. Both neighbors. None of them had numbers. She kicked her shoes off and headed for the bathroom. This isn't about Marvin, she said. This isn't about numbers or concentration camps. This is about you. All that night and into the next morning, I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed imagining that I'd proved to everyone what a fraud Marvin was. I pictured finding a photo of him, circa 1940, somewhere in Miami.
57:13I pictured calling the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Marvin, they would say. We have no record of a Marvin. I pictured confronting him at dinner, catching him out on some esoteric German historical fact. Wrong! Himmler didn't take over the Gestapo until 1934. Ha! But mostly, I just felt awful. A full third of our first family vacation was over, and we'd spent most of it fighting. I was sure our son sensed it, sure that he would hold it against me. Sure I was wrong, but sure I was right.
57:54At the first sign of daybreak, I got out of bed and went down to the beach. I walked south along the entire length of the shore before turning around and heading back. As I grew closer to the beach across from our villa, I saw something dark and heavy in the shallow water. I thought it was a log or a mass of seaweed, but then I saw it was moving. It was kicking. It was a person. And as I grew closer still, I realized it was Marvin. It was Marvin, and he was struggling to get to shore. I hate to admit it, but even as I ran to help him, I was pissed off. It was bad enough I had to put up with this pain in the ass.
58:33Now I had to save him? I grabbed Marvin around his chest, lifting and pulling as I swung his arm across my shoulder. He was coughing, spluttering, trying to catch his breath. I'm all right, he was saying. I'm all right. I helped him onto the beach. I was breathing heavily. That, I said, was the most pathetic cry for attention I have ever seen. Marvin laughed and took a moment to catch his breath. My wife, he said. Yeah, I said. Auschwitz. He shook his head. Second wife, he said. We came here together for 25 years. We used to get up for early morning swims. As I got older, it got harder for me to get back to the shore, undertow and all.
59:21She would stand at the edge and wait for me to come back. She sounds great, I said. She was, said Marvin. I shook my head. Such a shame she wasted all those years with you. Marvin laughed again. We have the same sense of humor, he said. We should spend more time together. I stood up, wiped the sand from my legs and hands, and uttered the most honest thing I'd said to Marvin since I met him. That sounds awful. Marvin smiled and we walked back to our rooms. And after that moment, he never bothered me again. I'd wasted three days trying to be polite to someone I couldn't stand, and nearly ruined another vacation.
1:00:06But by finally being the ass I really am, I'd saved it. I was cordial enough. Marvin waved when I saw him in the TV room, telling Holocaust stories to the young couple who checked in that evening, and I waved back. He nodded when I saw him at breakfast the following morning, telling a pair of young waitresses about mass graves in Sobibor, and I nodded back. And then we finished our breakfast and my wife took my hand in hers and she smiled at me and I smiled at her and together we walked arm in arm to watch the sun still rising over the unspoiled beach below.
1:00:52Shalom Auslander. He's the author most recently of the memoir V.
1:01:04Oh, time can accuse and carry bad news Seeds of distrust it will sow
1:01:23But unless you make no mistakes in your life You better be careful of the stones that you throw Well, program was produced today by Robin Samian and myself with Alex Bloomberg, Jane Marie, Lisa Pollack, Melissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer for today's show, Julie Snyder. Music album, Jessica Hopper. helping today's rerun from Suzanne Gabber and Stone Nelson. Special thanks today to Kim Hevener and Katie Stallman at Open Adoption and Family Services, the adoption agency in the Pacific Northwest that hooked us up with Kim in Act 3. Their website, openadopt.org. Thanks also to Don Friedman and Lea Tao, Catherine Burns and Meg McIntyre of The Moth.
1:02:05Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatiu, who joins me right now in the studio today. Tori, get a little closer to the microphone. Okay? Hey, are you feeling okay?
1:02:26I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life. You better be careful on the stove that you throw.
1:02:42Next week on the podcast of This American Life, There's a spot in Mackenzie and Isabella's house that's perfect for eavesdropping on their parents. It's a small sitting nook on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs. So you can hear everything that's going down. Or you sit in the rocking chair, it's right across the door. So it's like, they'll have the door closed and you can hear murmurs. We're kind of in the shadow, like, I know what's going on, but I don't know exact things. What they've been overhearing for the last year and what they think of it. Next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.
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From the publisher
Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter, and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
- Prologue: Amy Roberts thought it was obvious that she was an adult, not a kid, and she assumed the friendly man working at the children's museum knew it too. Unfortunately, the man had Amy pegged all wrong. And by the time she figured it out, it was too late for either of them to save face. Host Ira Glass talks to Amy about the embarrassing ordeal that taught her never to assume she knows what someone else is thinking. (8 minutes)
- Act One: While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that, for many people, is pretty much accepted as an upsetting fact of life. Richard Price told this story, which he describes as a tale taken from real life and dramatized, onstage at The Moth in New York. (12 minutes)
- Act Two: There are situations where making judgments about people based on limited information is not only accepted but required. One of those situations is open adoption, where birth mothers actually choose the adoptive parents for their child. Producer Nancy Updike talks to a pregnant woman named Kim, going through the first stage of open adoption: reading dozens of letters from prospective parents, all of whom seem utterly capable and appealing. (6 minutes)
- Act Three: David Rakoff picks a fight with a hit Broadway show. (6 minutes)
- Act Four: Shalom Auslander tells the story of the time he went on vacation, pegged the guest in the room next door as an imposter, and devoted his holiday to trying to prove it. Shalom is the author of Feh: a Memoir. (22 minutes)
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