I think I have a new favorite episode of This American Life, to add to the pantheon along with "Somewhere in the Arabian Sea" and "You Are So Beautiful... To Me". On my eight-hour drive Friday night I listened to "Houses of Ill Repute", and it charmed and repulsed and fascinated me. Three simple stories:

• It's Not a Crack House, It's a Crack Home An old man in Brooklyn lets some homeless prostitutes into his house on a cold winter night, and they never leave.
• The Crisco Kid An 18-year old moves into the only apartment he can find to rent in Houston.
• Bully's Pulpit Probably the most disturbing of the three and also the funniest, about what actually goes on in the US House of Representatives.

It took me places I'd never go myself (like, within 50 feet of Patrick McHenry) and it made any instability in my own life seem totally benign and overcomable by comparison.

Check it, why don't you.