866: Watch Out for That Tree

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Small human plans that run into much larger obstacles.

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Prologue: Angela's dad, an accountant, made a spreadsheet to prepare for their family trip to a national park. But there are things you never think to put in a spreadsheet. (7 minutes)
Act One: A young couple, excited to start a new chapter in their lives, is suddenly put on a very different trajectory. (30 minutes)
Act Two: A sixteen-year-old plans out a prank, and a complete stranger from Honduras ends up in a million-dollar deal. What could go wrong? (25 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Tom's an accountant, and he once said this thing to his kids that really stuck with him because
0:04.6	it summed up so much about his personality, and how he handles decisions at work and with his family.
0:12.2	He said it's his job to assess risk. It was part of his thinking, even when he planned family
0:18.2	vacations, planned vacations would take him months.
0:21.9	He'd get travel guides, check out national parks, he'd look for hidden gems near the parks
0:26.3	that they could visit along the way, he'd check the local weather.
0:29.6	To make sure that we know what the average temperatures are during those times of years.
0:35.6	Now, I'm going to ask this question as an accountant's kid. When you would put together the family's plan for the trip, was that done in an Excel spreadsheet? You know it. Pretty good on it. I like that. And so if I saw that spreadsheet, what would I be seeing? You'd be seeing from left to right, it has the dates that we're going to, you know, where we're going to be. And then we'll have a mileage between each spot, number of hours on the road, places to stay, that kind of thing. Okay, so one year the plan was to go to Great Basin National Park in Nevada, and hike. And whenever the family would go to a national park, they always like to do at least one really strenuous, difficult hike as part of the trip.
1:15.4	And on this trip, they decided to climb to the top of Wheeler Peak.
1:18.8	Tom researched this in advance, of course.
1:20.9	And the trail starts 10,000 feet up, and you climb 3,000 feet.
1:26.0	The one thing that I remember reading was that they said,
1:29.9	Wheeler is susceptible to changes in weather.
1:35.4	So I said, okay, they said, so get out early.
1:38.7	So we got out early.
1:39.8	We got out around 7 o'clock in the morning.
1:42.0	Of course, you checked the weather forecast for the day.
1:44.3	And I remember there was a 10% chance of thunderstorms, but later in the afternoon.
1:50.3	So I thought, okay, we could get up there by 10 o'clock, we could stay to 11, and we could come back down.
1:55.3	And avoid the trouble.
1:57.1	Correct.
1:58.3	And so, you know, the best laid plans, as we later found out.
	...

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