Endless Thread - Getting Home

Episode Date: January 18, 2018

When there was chaos in his life, Shane Correia had one constant: his folder. Shane’s story involves a grisly crime, Jehovah’s Witnesses, abuse, a locked door in his face — and escape. In this episode, we bring you the story of a man whose tenacity and hard work — and yes, his folder — got him out of chaos, and into some kind of normalcy.

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Produced by the I-Lap at WBUR, Boston. We're on the Williamsburg Bridge stuck in traffic. Going nowhere fast. Going nowhere fast. Here I am sitting in a car with my partner in podcasting crime, Emery Severson. We just talked to Shan Correa for several. several hours. He has a...

So many hours. So many hours. We're sort of giddy because we've just been through this emotionally intense experience of listening to the life story of this guy, Shane, and we're still trying to wrap our heads around it. We found Shane on Reddit. And like so many of the stories you find on the internet, his story is almost unbelievable. Part of me still does not believe his story.

That's how crazy it is to me. Shane's crazy story involves a grisly crime, Jehovah's Witnesses, Abuse, Escape, and a turtle who has lived through it all. And we know Shane's story is true because he is super organized. He has this folder, and it has basically every important document that matters in his entire life story. This was my survival pack. This letter-sized, like, accordion-style document holder. And like, if there's ever a fire, I'm grabbing this. What's in here now, like my medical immunizations, my passport, my ID,

my high school working papers, legal documents, charges and psych evaluations from the divorce, police records from both incidents with my dad, more police reports, articles from when I was working on public. Shane's folder of stuff is like the only thing in his life story that has any level of order. The rest is chaos. I was angry and pissed and sad.

I only had until morning when school started for like some normalcy. I'm Ben Brock Johnson. You are listening to Endless Thread, a show featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit. We are finding all kinds of stories. We're going to listen to Redditors tell their stories. We're going to wait into the comments, It's going to be great and weird and fun and hopefully enlightening.

One does not simply walk into our show without saying how it is made. We are coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station, and we're making this show with little help from our friends at Reddit. Today's episode, Getting Home. Hey, Emery Sievertson, producer Venless Thread. Hey, Ben. So we didn't set out to tell Shane's life story. We were just looking at a popular and controversial post in Reddit's NYC community.

It was titled, Stop Giving Money to Panhandlers, Please. Right, and that post was made by this guy. When are we starting? Is it like, no? My dad wanted to know, like, if it would be live or not. This is Josh Hoffman, known on Reddit as Sarah Mello. He's a college freshman. He grew up in New York City. And that has actually shaped how he thinks about this. There was this man who was standing in the middle of sidewalk in New York.

and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, I'm starving, help me. Why won't anyone help me? What the F is wrong with these people? I went up and I gave him some money and kept walking. And even after I was leaving, I could still hear him just standing the same place, continuing to shout that he's starving while anyone help him. And I'm beginning to think that he was gathering money for something else instead of food.

This question of whether to give money to people asking for money on the street It's not surprising, but it's complex, right? Because even though most of us want to help, we're not sure if this is the way to do it. Yeah, and there was a lot of debate on Josh's Reddit post. Shane weighed into that debate, and his comment stuck out to us because he was speaking from experience as someone who lived homeless in New York. But when we called up Shane to learn more about his experience living homeless, we realized there was way more to his story. So we headed to New York to talk in person. Shane lives in Washington Heights, near the very top of Manhattan Island above Harlem, near the A-Train.

The A-Train is the longest train line in New York subway system. It has some significance in Shane's life. We'll get to that. The 168th street stop is closest to where Shane lives now. Hey, how's it going? Hello. Hi, Shane of Amory. So nice to meet you.

We're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Shane is 29 years old, short dark hair, clean-shaven. seems fit, his apartment is tidy, he lives with a couple of roommates and... What? Who is this? That's Little Dude.

Little dude? Little dude, yeah. I've had him since I was 14. No. Yeah. Actually, fun fact, when I was on the subway, a couple of nights he was just in my pocket buttoned up. What? After our Little Dude the Turtle introduction, Shane sits down to tell us his life. story. His family is from Guyana, but he was born in the Bronx, where his family lived in a

brownstone near the projects. He went to Catholic school, St. Jerome. He has two older brothers and an older sister. His oldest brother, Steve, moved out when he was pretty young. Something to do is Steve running with a bad crowd. I ask Shane how old his siblings are. You know, I still don't know that. So I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, and we didn't celebrate birthdays. Wow. I did not know that about Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh yeah, no birthdays, no holidays, like, you know, preach the word of God, do memorial service, that's about it. So no birthdays, none of those kinds of benchmarks, which are like I'm really obsessed with dates in terms of my catalogings. Yeah. So, but that one I don't know. The more you talk to Shane, the more you realize his organization

is level expert, even as everything else is kind of rough. Starting with the divorce of his parents when he's about four years old, it's a bad one. And some of the the bad blood between his parents doesn't go away. And then, like, things just kind of ramped up, and all of a sudden we weren't spending nights in the house anymore. We were spending nights in hotels. And, like, my dad was upping his level of harassment against my mom. Okay.

Really messed up stuff, like, her breaks would get tampered with, and just the sense of safety really deteriorated. This seems like an objectively bad situation. But Shane's take? Throughout the entire thing, you know, I'm like, eight years old and I'm just thinking, whoa, we get to spend a night in a hotel. Like, this is so cool. So you were not really conscious of that?

No, I didn't know what was going on at all, which is kind of good. It's tough to tell without birthdays, but Shane thinks he was about 10 years old when he and his mom go to live with his sister and her new husband in Washington State. They're in a new unfamiliar place, a new church, or as the Jehovah's Witnesses call it, a kingdom hall. It's a lot of change all at once. And that's where things got weird. Shane and his mom and sister have escaped the emotional and physical abuse of his dad. But now they start to have family problems of their own.

First, Shane's sister gets disfellowshipped or kicked out of the church for getting involved with a man who isn't her husband. First Corinthians 1533, do not be misled. Bad association spoils useful habits. Wow. You know your verse. Still know my verse. Couldn't shake that part. How zealous were you as a young Jehovah's Witness?

I was pretty zealous, like, kind of obnoxious about it. Like, me and my elder brother talk about it sometimes, and he was like, I say it too. I was like, God, if I knew me back then, I wouldn't want to be friends with me. Like, you know, I really... Well, we all don't want to be friends with ourselves as it, as young teenagers. That's actually really comforting. No, but I really believed it, you know, like I believed it fully. But then, as Shane hits early adolescence, a truth starts to reveal itself.

A truth that makes his life as a very observant Jehovah's Witness awkward. He starts to realize he's gay. At first, he thinks he'll fix it with God's help. He asks his mom about it. Actually, he asks her about witnessing to gay people. This is probably the most recognizable part of the religion, where Jehovah's Witnesses go out, preach the church's belief system to non-believers. Shane asks his mom if she witnesses to gay people.

She says she can't stomach it. Witnessing was a huge part of my life. Like going out door to door, that was our Saturday activities and Sunday. And so to like hear that she couldn't even talk to a gay person scared me. As this and some of the other stress on the family come to a head, one day Shane has a kind of breakdown. He starts babbling. Someone calls an ambulance. One of the EMTs was like, hey man, hey man, be a man. be a man or like man up or something.

And the moment he said that, I just started freaking out. And they like had to take me to the hospital. Shane gets discharged pretty quickly. Not much comes of that visit. But eventually he does something really unfortunate. One night, my mom was home. She was scrapbooking in the living room. And I saw her and I really wanted to tell her something.

I didn't know what, but something. Yeah. but I didn't know what to say so you know I took a bunch of her pills from the bathroom and I went into my room and I just started popping them yeah um and then I don't know what went through my mind but I just got really scared and so I um so I went into the living room very calmly I was like mom I just took a bunch of pills. And... Because Shane tells his mom what he's done, they get to the hospital in time. And shortly after this adolescent brush

with death, Shane learns something that gives him hope. There are other gay people in the world. Thank God for AOL in those free CDs because, like, my mom was not going to pay for the internet. So, like, you know, she paid for phone, she would not pay for internet, but AOL kept me online.

Why do you say thank God for that? Because if it were not for access to an outside opinion, I would probably be repressed Jehovah's Witness somewhere or dead. Wow. Yeah. You know, first it was like realizing that there were other people like me, that there were even other gay Jehovah's Witnesses. Like, was flooring, you know. Just to say this out loud, we're having a really serious conversation. I respect that.

but also there is nothing more redidary than to say the internet saved me. Yeah, I guess so. But it's true. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I mean, the first thing that I remember seeing that was totally not Trobe's Witness sanctioned was Little Kim's How Many Licks music video.

And I was like, oh my God, like, the world is really. really different. And so, you know, at some point... Great video. I know all the words. We'll not sing them, but I know them. What chain finds online brings him to this decision. It's time for some radical honesty.

I remember the night that I came out to my mom. She was in her room, and I, like, roll in the chair from my room and, like, put it in the doorway. And I'm like, so, Mom, I have something that I want to tell you. And I'm, like, trying to couch it as much as possible. and I tell her I'm attracted to men. Not that I'm gay, not anything like that. I was actually hoping that she would take me to the elders and fix me. Like, I couldn't do it myself.

And she looked at me and she said, why isn't my children become my worst fears? After she says this, Shane's mom goes to sleep, conversation over. And not just over that night. Like, conversation over. She no longer asked me about going to the Kingdom Hall. She no longer asked me about school. She didn't really talk to me.

And again, she's really, like, I just want to reaffirm. Yeah. She is really trying her best. She is really trying, but, like, everyone's got a line, you know? She couldn't handle it. And by the way, that really messed up thing Shane's mom says when he comes out to her that night, about all of her children becoming her worst fears, it's referencing this whole other part of Shane's family story that is nuts.

While all of this stuff in his life is going on, while Shane is grappling with his sexuality, what it means when it comes to this intense religious life he's leading, there's this other thing that happens. Shane's sister gets arrested for murdering her mother-in-law, bludgeoning her to death with fireplace tongs. And this murder is just like a sidebar to Shane's story about living homeless in New York City.

Right now, though, Uh, could I have a cigarette on the fire escape? You want a smoke break? Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Shane needs a smoke break. Do you guys want to join me? Yeah. Sure, yeah.

Let me grab a jacket. Do you guys need layers or anything? We will get to that story after the break. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing. Or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

Radio Lab, Adventures on the Edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcast. So Shane Coraya has taken us out onto his fire escape in Washington Heights, New York. And he goes through the story of his sister getting charged with the murder of her mother-in-law. It's a long, weird, confusing story and it's noisy on the fire escape, so I'll summarize. Around the same time, Shane is realizing he's gay and living in Washington State with his mom near to his estranged sister Sophia, Sophia and Shane's older brother, Sean, get picked up by the cops, because Sophia's mother-in-law has been killed.

So, like, I've talked to my sister, and everyone's got a different story, and this is where I just kind of surrender to the justice system. Okay. So, let's go to the justice system. A description of Sophia's case sort of written from the perspective of Sean, Shane's brother, says this. Sophia and Sean go to her mother-in-law's house with a plan to steal $10,000 that is supposedly hidden in the house. When they get there and start looking around, they hear a garage door open, and they realize the mother-in-law is actually home. Sophia tells Sean to stay put. She goes down to the garage. And then Sean hears a scream.

So he runs down to the garage and he sees someone standing over the mother-in-law's dead body holding fireplace tongs. The person holding the tongs has a stocking over their face. The person lifts the stocking. It's his sister. Sophia gets convicted of the murder. Sean is charged with assisting in the crime.

But in exchange for testifying against Sophia, he gets just one year in prison. And then Sophia's conviction gets over. overturned, something about a jury member in the original trial being improperly dismissed. So the case heads back to court. But this time, Shane's brother, Sean, refuses to testify, saying he now thinks someone else committed the crime. Not Sophia. Sophia gets exonerated.

So the question for Shane, do you think she did it? Uh, I don't know. I used to. I don't see her as the way that I read about her in all these articles. Frankly, Sean, not the most dependable character. He would do anything to save his own skin, so I definitely don't trust his testimony at all. Okay.

And his testimony is the only testimony that says she did it. That's right. And again, this murder happens right around the same time Shane is realizing he's gay. He's dealing with his mom, his church. Oh, yeah. In school. I remember, like, going into the lunchroom and, like, this group of kids, like, led by this one that I just really didn't like, is, like, coming toward me. And, like, the kid that I don't like, is like, so is it true that your sister killed someone?

And I, like, didn't have a response. I just, like, grabbed my shit. And I, like, went to the library. And honestly, after that, I just kind of stopped going to school. I'd always been a really good student up to that point. and then I just kind of shut down. It sounds like you were going through some stuff, even though you didn't necessarily realize it at the time.

I think that's a fairly consistent theme, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine being 13 years old. Your mom's not talking to you. You're getting bullied at school. And to top it all off, your sister has been convicted of murder. What do you do with all that?

Shane does the only thing he thinks he can do. He reaches out to the guy whose abuse sent him across the country, in the first place, his dad. And he's like, you know, you should just come to New York, you have a place to live. I was like, all right. And this is a guy that you don't really know since you were four years old. No, not at all. But he's your only option in some ways.

Yeah, absolutely. The only things that I knew about my dad was like really bad stuff. Like my entire adolescence was spent ensuring that there would be no, like... Contact. Yeah. And so I, my mom doesn't even take me to the airport. By the way, this is around when Shane gets little dude his turtle, which is an interesting idea because he's had all these bad experiences with family that have taught him to fend for

himself. But he wants someone or something to take care of and the way people aren't really taking care of him. And he's not just taking care of little dude. He's also starting to be responsible for his own life. In this way that you wouldn't expect. For instance, after a few months at his dad's, he's like, wait, I should probably be going to Cool. I enroll in school and it was kind of like I got to reinvent myself. Like, I didn't have the,

uh, the censor of being a Jehovah's Witness anymore. And I also didn't have to like hate myself. Like, you know, the Jehovah's Witnesses were out of my life now. And my dad, I did not have any sympathy for. So for him, like, I really didn't, I know, I still mean this. I didn't really have much concern for his feelings. Yeah. So, you know, I told him that I was gay and at first he was super cool with it. He was like, you know, we will get through this together. Right. But I was like, no, no, I'm like pretty, I'm okay with this now. Like, uh, I'm gay. I'm pretty gay, dad. Pretty gay, he's super gay here, dad. Um, very quickly after that, that compassion started fading away. Um, why? I think he started realizing that I didn't want to change. Like, suddenly,

one of the first transitions was like I stopped being Shane. I was cock sucker or faggot or like that was my name, like from 13 to 18. This environment leads to some big fights between Shane and his dad. A few times the cops get called. Things generally escalate. Eventually Shane's 18th birthday starts to loom. His dad is on one of his many visits to Guyana where extended family still lives. But Shane gets the feeling that something's about to go down.

And sure enough, Shane gets the news from family members that his dad is flying back, just in time for his birthday. I go to school on my birthday, have a pretty normal day. I get home, and I'm getting ready for, like, a birthday dinner. Like, I'm going to celebrate my birthday. You know, my dad comes home, and he's like, are you still gay? And I'm, like, getting ready to go to dinner. He's like, yeah, dad, I'm still gay, and I'm going out to dinner with my boyfriend. And so I go, my high school boyfriend at the time, you know, comes,

home with me. I'm trying to open the door with my keys. They're not working. And so, like, still trying, and nothing is happening. It's, like, midnight at this point. My step-sisters are in the room next to the door. And so I'm, like, banging on the metal gate, trying to, like, get them to open it.

And they, like, text me, and they're, like, George says, we can't let you in. Lox changed. Shane is on the street as a high school senior. Shane goes to stay with his boyfriend and his boyfriend's mom. This is when he gets really organized because Shane's boyfriend's place is a temporary solution. And so the first month while I was like with my boyfriend

was kind of just building up, it was like the worst scavenger hunt. Like you just have to go from place to place and every place has different requirements and you don't know which one's ultimately going to give you shelter. and you, you know, I went through so many psychological evaluations and physicals and blood tests and, like, stuff. Eventually, Shane finds a homeless shelter in Brooklyn called Independence Inn. And he gets in because he's got this folder, specifically a folder with the immunizations you need to be

considered for a bed. Remember, Shane's doing this while he's still in high school. My first night there, there's a closet. I still have a little dude with me. So I'm putting him in the closet. The bed is like made of some weird plastic that's all tore up. Underneath my pillow was a fork that had been like melded. Like the two outside tongs had been like pushed down to like create like a shiv.

So I was like, great. Where the hell am I? Wow. Yeah, so not fun. Shane gets a job. It's at a hair salon in Manhattan. Then one day he and his boyfriend have a really messy breakup fight. Shane's late getting back to Independence Inn.

He misses curfew. They're real strict about curfew. So I slept on the train. Went to school, went to work, still got to earn that paycheck hourly. You know, put little dude in the teacher's sink. When I went to work, put him in the employee's lounge sink. People would feed him, which was great. There was only like two weeks left of the semester.

And it was kind of just like every night trying to figure out like where to go, what to do. and, you know, sometimes I'd, like, feel comfortable enough to tell my friends like, hey, you know, I'm super close to where you are, because I have an event there that's going on tonight. Do you mind if I crash at your place? Shane found solace in the things that were routine, his classes, for instance. But then he graduates. High school is officially over. That was when I actually got really scared, because all of a sudden, my day had time in it that I couldn't fill.

Remember when I said the A-Train had a significance in Shane's life? Well, now, the A-Train is his bed. This is maybe his lowest point. 32 miles, stretching from the top of Manhattan through Brooklyn and out to far Rockaway Queens. This stretch gives homeless Shane the best chance for almost two hours of uninterrupted sleep before he gets kicked off at the end of the line, and he has to wait to get back on and head the other way. I just slept on the train until I needed to go to the first thing that I had to do.

And that also starts interfering with work because you don't want to be the dude with a turtle in your pocket who like ruined your coat because he used to shit all over it and like going to work in a rumpled suit because you have no place to put it. And like that was when I actually started to feel homeless. And that's when I started telling my friends. has basically been locking up his feelings because the people who he's supposed to be open with, his mom, his dad, his siblings aren't really there for him. But instead of totally falling apart, shame becomes really organized. Let's go back to his folder.

You know, actually, when I went to one of the drop in centers and I pulled this out, one of the case managers was like, oh, you're not going to be homeless long. Like, you know, you've got this. And that was, that was nice. That felt really good to hear, you know, Because there's not a guidebook for that shit. Like, yeah, so it felt nice. It might feel counterintuitive that some homeless people are extremely self-reliant because it's easy to assume that the reason someone is on the street

is that they can't get it together. But Shane had it together. And in a way, there was evidence all along, how he came out to his mom, how he enrolled himself in high school when he was back in New York. The case manager was right. He wouldn't be homeless for long. Eventually, Shane's drive for independence and his hourly paycheck get him his own little

room in a friend's apartment. And this is where Shane's story takes yet another amazing turn. First, he puts himself through college. Then he keeps going. He finds a way to go to law school and he gets a law degree because he wants to work in the justice system. Because it was the court and law enforcement that brought order to the chaos of Shane's life growing up when it came to protecting him and his mom from his dad's abuse, for instance. Today, Shane works for the the Bronx District Attorney's Office, the same office that years ago brought domestic violence charges against his dad. Shane is doing so well in life and work and housing that he's willing to make a really special trip with us. Oh, that's, that's it. I mean, that's got to be 93 at minimum,

but that's the place I remember. Shane takes us to that homeless shelter in Brooklyn, Independence Inn. He hasn't been back since he got kicked out. They'll let us in. I'd like to show you my old room. Oh, what's the sign? Is this it? Yeah, this is it. This is where I was at Independence Inn, and I'm actually curious if it's still Independence Inn. Do you mind if I...

No, please do. Shane rings the bell. They used to have a security camera, though, unless that's it. He looks eager, but no one comes to the door. So he has to sit with the reality that this shelter, as solid a symbol of Shane's homeless experience as anything else, is something different now. I mean, honestly, I don't really recognize anything outside of this building.

Like, this used to be a really bad neighborhood. Like, the Jewish neighborhood ended about two blocks that way, and the walk here felt dangerous. And now it's like a beautiful tree-lined street with no trash. It's different. In a way, it almost feels like appropriate. It feels like, like, this feels like you now. Does that make sense? It does, but I took such a different sense from it.

Like, for me, I kind of felt, like, sad seeing all this change. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, it was hard enough to find this place. Like, well, where do they go now, you know? Shane's story isn't over. His ability to rely on himself and a strength of character that formed, despite growing up in a broken family, led him out of the woods, off the a train. and into his Washington Heights apartment,

where he has now lived for six years. But Shane's not quite home yet. He's working on it. I've got some low standards about home. I mean, this is definitely home. It's safe. It's dependable. It's stable.

I have control over. Little dude has a lot of space. You know, his living situation has upgraded as mine has. Like we went from like a tiny little plastic. tanked and now he's kind of decked out. Like, you know, I've been able to do the basics of home. But what I'm starting to understand is also necessary for the concept of home is like people that you can rely on and trust and feel with.

And I'm not good with that yet. So I'm learning how to be vulnerable with us. other people. And I think that's when I'll really have a sense of home. There's more in a minute. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from City Space Productions, the creative studio from WBUR's Business Partnerships Team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover. how the magic is made at WBUR.org

slash creative studio. So, Amory, hey. Let's go back to this Reddit thread that started the whole episode, which is how we found Shane Correa from this thread. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time when you and I are sifting through Reddit comments. Someone maybe responds with a totally different perspective than the original poster.

And just like in Shane's case, you wouldn't necessarily know the depth of his experience from reading the comment itself. But do you want to read some of Shane's comment from that thread about giving money to panhandlers? Sure. So Shane talks about New York City's 311 app, which a lot of cities have this. It's like a neighborhood services app

where you can report things like potholes or graffiti. But in this case, Shane writes, the 311 app allows you to report a homeless person for a Department of Homeless Services team to go to the site the person is reported and offer services. There's research that most of the person, Multiple outreach efforts eventually result in services being accepted. For me, when I had to start really sleeping outside and accepting like this is where I have,

that was the first time I felt scared. You know, if you're triaging the homeless population, the ones who don't really know how to even ask for help or the ones that I think need it the most, for people who actually go up to another person and ask them for money, I always state, you know, I don't carry cash because, and this might be its own form of anger, but it's kind of like, it was so hard for me to ask for anything from anyone, let alone, never strangers. You know, I know that this will not be beneficial. Like, I do not rather believe that this would be beneficial. And by the way, something Shane mentioned, and we should also mention, every homeless person's story is different. Part of Shane's feelings about what we should do

also come from another thing he did when he got back on his feet. He worked for New York City's Department of Homeless Services. I remember one of the first women that I met, I was like, hey, I just want to share with you that I was homeless, so I understand what it is that you're going through. And she was like, oh, so you've got two kids. And I was like, nope. Never mind.

Yeah, exactly. That's when I became a lot more compassionate toward my story just being one of many. Thanks for telling us your story. Thank you. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR, station in partnership with Reddit. The idea for the show is conceived by Jessica Alpert, who when we ask if she likes the episode we've put together, she always says...

No, no, no, no, no. Yes! Iris Adler is our executive producer and human proof that we are... Totally not robots. Mix and sound design by John Parati and Paul Vicus, who liked to make the show sound... Interesting as... Lisa Kramer is our web guru who always looks at our web copy, and even if she hates it, She recognizes...

There was an attempt. Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, and whenever we have our weekly meeting with him, we can all agree. It was... Oddly satisfying. Our theme music was composed by the band Squelcher. Big thanks to last week's episode Artwork Creator and Redditor Rob Callister. This week's episode, Art from Reddit was made by user Kryptonian Germ.

Redditors, if you want to make art for an upcoming episode, hit us up. You can find us on Twitter at Endless underscore Thread. If you want to reach out to us about a story or give us feedback, on the show. You can find us on Reddit. Our username is Endless underscore Thread. We're also online at WbUR.org.org slash endless thread. Subscribe to the show on your podcast app of choice. And if you love the show, write us a review. Helps other people find us. Today, you learn the show is produced by Amory Sieverts. I'm senior producer and host, Ben Brock Johnson. I'll let myself out.