When Anne Staggs started to fall for an inmate named Charles in the Texas prison system, she was up against odds as daunting as they ever get for two people. It was against the rules, possibly dangerous, and could have gotten her fired.

Ron Copeland is a historical interpreter at the Conner Prairie Living History Museum, outside of Indianapolis. For several months a year, in his job, he pretends to be a slaveowner in the old south.

Dishwasher Pete tells the story of his first day washing dishes on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. He'd heard he'd get a hazing when he stepped foot on the rig.

Jack Hitt visits Toby Lester, who has mapped all the ambient sounds in his world: the hum of the heater, the fan on the computer. Jack's most recent book is Bunch of Amateurs.

What happens when being on the road is your job, and has been your job for decades? Reporter Margy Rochlin recalls a trip she took with 92-year-old George Burns and his tiny entourage.

How the science of radio enabled V103 to become tied for number one in the Chicago market. And how it cost DJ Ida Hackele her job.

Ira with Elizabeth Joseph, who is in a polygamous marriage with eight wives and one husband. She says polygamy is the ultimate feminist lifestyle.

Frankie Cruz Junior takes on all contenders at a nightclub in Chicago, and nearly always wins. It's a terrible job that pays badly and has no insurance or other benefits.

Sarah Vowell with Jim Nayder, host of Magnificent Obsession and The Annoying Music Show, who personifies our culture's split between seriousness and wackiness as well as anyone.

In Vietnam, Jeffrey Harris, with one year of grad school, judged which soldiers stayed and which went home.

In which we tackle the biggest possible how-to we could think of: how to make your life worth more. And we get answers — real, practical answers — from the people whose job it is to think about this issue: insurance adjusters.

A story of guys who wear real masks, like superheroes, in their jobs as costumed wrestlers in a kind of Mexican wrestling called Lucha Libre. Writer RJ Smith has them talk about how much smaller they feel, how humiliated, when they have to take the masks off.

Will Powers — his real name — decided to try to use all the tools of modern brand marketing to sell himself to his own wife. It turned out to help their marriage.

Sarah Vowell, on selling the secrets of art dealer Graham Arader.

Ira with Lloyd Natoff, on killing chickens.

Independent producer Dan Collison, on Pilottown and a feature story that fell apart.

Scott Carrier in Salt Lake City with a story about whether it's possible to be a good person if you're not a Christian.

New York City locksmith Joel Kostman tells the story of an act of kindness he committed, hoping for a small reward. From his book: Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith.

Andrea worked at a bakery under a convention hotel in Chicago. The conventioneers used to drive her crazy because people act so different when they're in a crowd of their own kind.

Reporter Paul Tough talks with Aaron Hsu-Flanders, an acknowledged master in the field of animal balloons, who says that artistic jealousies have ruined his life. Even in the world of latex giraffes and doggies, there are artistic rivalries and bitterness.