Welcome to Home of the Brave. I'm Scott Carrier. Today I'm going to play a piece by my friend Erica

Heilman who lives in Vermont. She has a podcast called Rumble Strip that's a lot like this one in that she does it by

herself with listener support. Sometimes she interviews farmers about what it's like

to be a farmer in Vermont, sometimes she reports on mental health care in the local

emergency rooms or she covers the new exhibit at the Museum of Everyday Life, and sometimes she

does satire, like this piece.

You know, yesterday I was driving to an appointment in town in Montpelier.

I'd left myself plenty of time, but I live about eight miles outside of town,

and it's a pretty curvy road, so there's not a lot of opportunity for passing.

And this car in front of me was going 35 miles per hour in a 50 mile per hour speed zone,

which is fine because if they feel like they need to go 15 miles under the speed limit, they probably should, but I had a lot of

time to wonder why they wouldn't just recognize that I was behind them and recognize that

I'd probably be behind them for the next eight miles.

And why didn't they just pull over?

Just for a second so I could get by.

Now I know this isn't a big problem, but it is a problem. Welcome to the first episode of Problems, a periodic radio drama from Rumble Strip about

problems, Pam and Joel's problems.

Pam and Joel, who you will hear from in this show, are old friends and they support each other through their problems.

And even if you don't think their problems are very problematic, for Pam and Joel, they are.

This episode is called Grout and the Contra Dance.

Welcome.

Hello?

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