This is Rumble Strip. I'm Erica Heilman.

Last week I went to a birthday party for my friend Jesse.

It was a big party as parties go around here.

I was coming to the party from a very frustrating day of editing.

And when I got there, I realized that I didn't have anything to say to anybody and I

didn't want to hear what anybody else had to say. And those are sort of the only things that

happen at a party. It wasn't that I didn't want to be at the party. I mean, I certainly didn't

want to be home thinking about this show anymore. But Jesse and Serena are the kinds of friends where you can go to their

party, and if you decide that you don't want to be at the party, you can just go in the

guest room and lie down and look at the ceiling, and that's what I did for the party.

And it felt like being a kid when your parents are having a party, and you lie on all of the guests' coats that are

piled up usually in a dark room near the party. You can hear everybody out there having fun,

but you don't have to talk to anybody. It's very cozy. Anyway, the reason that you're listening

to whales right now is this is sort of what the party sounded like from the upstairs guest room.

And since I wasn't really at the party, I asked everybody who was there to send me recordings about what happened to them that night.

And then I made a show called The Party, which is what you're about to hear.

Welcome.

I was maybe the first person there.

I was the person that was there as the person that always leaves before the party starts

was leaving.

We got there, we parked in the dark.

Kate was worried she was blocking someone in, but it didn't seem like she was to me.

...