Driving, swimming, laundry.

Some lessons you learn as a kid can be easily mastered.

But what about everything else?

Love, responsibility, the birds and the bees.

Life lessons learned the hard way on today's

selected shorts. I'm Meg Wallitzer. Stay with me. You're listening to Selected Shorts,

where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

Adolescence is a constant state of learning.

And not just basic stuff like how to ride a bike.

When we're young, we're trying to figure out how the world works and where we fit into it.

But big life lessons aren't earned like certificates that collect in a neat

little pile. They come in different shapes at different times and are delivered to us by very

different messengers. And on this selected shorts, we're going to hear stories about unpredictable

life lessons, ones that just might be foisted upon us by the people who love us most.

In one story, a preteen learns about the birds and the bees from an icon of 90s masculinity.

In another, an awkward girl taps her way into a new life. And in a third, a granddaughter

fits into her life just fine fine until her grandmother decides otherwise.

Our first piece is by writer Anthony Mara.

He's written novels including The Tsar of Love and Techno,

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, and his latest Mercury Pictures Presents.

The producers of selected shorts are fans of Mara's lively characters,

so we commissioned a piece from Mara directly.

...