896: I Know What You Need
Moments when it seems obvious what to do for someone else, so of course you jump in and try to help — and what happens after that.
(00:00:00) Prologue: Devon Taylor tells host Ira Glass about a time she confronted people who stole $100 from her. (12 minutes)
(00:12:01) Act One: We get to an age when we find ourselves taking care of our parents, whether they want us to or not. Writer Kristen Roupenian wrote this piece of fiction based on something real that happened to a family she knows. (20 minutes)
(00:33:37) Act Two: Two chatbots, stuck in a loop, each trying to help the other. Will they ever break free? (20 minutes)
(00:55:48) Act Three: In Utah, some communities have been fighting measles outbreaks for 14 months. These are some of the longest-running outbreaks in the country. But one of our producers, Miki Meek, heard about how school nurses in a town called Vernal helped end its outbreak in just six weeks. Miki finds out how they did it. (9 minutes)
- Duration
- 1h 10m
- Broadcast on
- 30 Aug 2026
- Audio Format
- other
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
And it's Hyra, the quick word before the show starts. So we have this video that I wanna show you. Maybe you heard, 'cause we did so many promos, actually, that we just did this live show on stage in Los Angeles where I told stories and then Vic McCayless and these really talented comedians did improvise scenes based on those stories on the spot. And we live streamed video of this show. And I'm just here to say that if you missed the live stream, you can now see the show. We have posted the video online. It's a really fun show and to watch this for absolutely free, sign up for a free trial, this American Life Partners subscription. And our hope is, you know, you'll stick around after the trial and that you'll love all the bonus episodes and listening ad free and all the other stuff we give you plus we hope you'll like helping us make the show by sending us this money. But if you don't, if you just want the free trial, watch the video, try it out for a couple days, quit, no foul, fine with us. And I think you're really gonna enjoy watching the show we did. Go to thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners and use the, this is a very original promo code we came up with, video. That's right, the promo code is video. It link is also in the show notes. Okay, here's this week's show. Support for this American Life comes from Squarespace. Build a fully custom website in just a few steps using Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder, Blueprint AI. Simply provide basic details about your industry, goals and personality, and Blueprint AI will generate high quality content along with personalized design suggestions. Highlight your offerings with a website tailored to help your business grow. Visit squarespace.com/american to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. When she was in her late 20s, Devon was in grad school in Memphis and scraping by like you do in grad school. When a car broke down, she didn't have the money to fix it for months.
Transcription truncated.
Moments when it seems obvious what to do for someone else, so of course you jump in and try to help — and what happens after that.
(00:00:00) Prologue: Devon Taylor tells host Ira Glass about a time she confronted people who stole $100 from her. (12 minutes)
(00:12:01) Act One: We get to an age when we find ourselves taking care of our parents, whether they want us to or not. Writer Kristen Roupenian wrote this piece of fiction based on something real that happened to a family she knows. (20 minutes)
(00:33:37) Act Two: Two chatbots, stuck in a loop, each trying to help the other. Will they ever break free? (20 minutes)
(00:55:48) Act Three: In Utah, some communities have been fighting measles outbreaks for 14 months. These are some of the longest-running outbreaks in the country. But one of our producers, Miki Meek, heard about how school nurses in a town called Vernal helped end its outbreak in just six weeks. Miki finds out how they did it. (9 minutes)