Hi, NSQers! We're off for Independence Day, so we're resharing one of our favorite questions from the first year of the show.

We've added a couple new elements, so even if you've heard it before, there's a little something different for you.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. In the meantime, enjoy this conversation from the NSQ Archive.

What do I need to do to you people? Do you need a telegram? I'm trying to teach you a lesson.

I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Stephen Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions.

Today on the show, how does facing death change your life? You're with a person who already was an ex-boyfriend.

Yeah, I know. That's near death right there.

Angela, I recently had a near death experience. And if I died, it would have been not funny,

exactly, but at least like a no-hendry short story, because I almost got killed in a traffic accident

while driving back from getting my second COVID vaccine shot. Oh, that would have been a great short story.

Right? I would have been willing to die for that story, but I didn't. Alas, darn it.

So we have this lean version of the story in which the protagonist doesn't even die. But anyway,

I got my vaccine early in the morning on a Sunday morning in Queens, which was about a 35, 40-minute

drive from where I live. And I'm driving back. And I'm on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which is

usually a highway that travels at about half a mile an hour. It's just always jammed up.

Okay. But on a Sunday morning, it was flying. So everybody's going, you know, not crazy fast,

but 55, 60, like highway speeds. Highway speed. And then all of a sudden, in the middle lane of

this three lane highway, under an overpass, or would that be under an underpass? I guess under an

underpass was a tractor trailer parked in the center lane at a full stop. Wow. So I

slay him on the brakes, and I'm waiting to either fish tail and get killed or to hit him or to get

hit them behind. And none of those bad things happened. Anyway, here's my point. I didn't die

plainly, but it was the closest I've come to death in a long time, maybe ever. And I expected

...