This is a global tell link prepaid call from an inmate at a Maryland correctional facility.

From this American life in W.B.E.C. Chicago, it's serial.

One story told week by week.

I'm Sarah Canig. For the last year I've spent every working day trying to figure out where a high school kid was for an hour after school one day in 1999. Or if you want to get technical

about it, and apparently I do, where a high school kid was for 21 minutes after school one day

in 1999. This search sometimes feels undignified on my part.

I've had to ask about teenagers sex lives, where, how often, with whom?

About notes they passed in class, about their

relationships with their parents

and I am not a detective or a private investigator.

I'm not even a crime reporter.

But yes, every day this year I've tried to figure out the alibi of a 17 year old boy.

Before I get into why I've been doing this, I just want to point out something I'd never really

thought about before I started working on this story.

And that is, it's really hard to account for your time in a detailed way I mean

how'd you get to work last Wednesday for instance drive walk bike was it raining are you

sure did you go to any stores that day? If so, what did you buy? Who did you talk to? The

entire day, name every person you talk to. It's hard. Now imagine you have to account for a day that happened six weeks back,

because that's a situation in the story I'm working on, in which a bunch of teenagers

had to recall a day six weeks earlier. And it was 1999, so they had to do it without the benefit of texts or Facebook or

Instagram. Just for a lark, I asked some teenagers to try it.

Do you remember what you did on that Friday?

...