From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam. This is my unsung hero,

stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

Thank you so much for the chance to tell you about my Unsung Hero.

I just left there feeling like there was hope for my situation and my kids.

I can never thank you enough for all you've done for me.

And I'll never be able to repay you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Today's story comes from Emmanuel Jochee. In 2015, Emmanuel was living in his first adult apartment in Chicago.

He and his roommate had enough money for rent and food,

but they didn't have anything left over for furniture.

So he started asking people he knew

whether they had anything he could buy for cheap.

One day an acquaintance from college said she had a large beanbag chair she could give him.

Emmanuel asked a friend with a car for help.

Somehow they fit the huge chair into his friend's tiny car and got it back to Emmanuel's block.

It was directly across the street from a bar.

All the smokers outside the bus saw us pull up in this tiny car and start trying to take this

giant beanbag out of it.

And so it was kind of embarrassing.

We were trying to do it discreetly and quickly.

And it kept pushing the seat forward to hit the horn. So we're causing this massive racket and it's just not it's not working. We were getting like maybe like a centimeter at a time out, you know? And then I started to hear this particularly maniacal laughter

coming from the direction of a bar.

...