Welcome, friends. This is a partner in Charla and it is time for Too Hot for Radio,

the show that steals the most wicked tales from selected shorts and gives them new life for sweet little perves like you.

What some might see as public radio's sloppy seconds, we see as our podcast

potent premieres. And TBH, we'll take things as sloppy as we can get. And speaking of sloppy

things, relationships. As you know, relationships have many phases. When things start out, it's light and easy and fun,

like a kid's board game, let's say Candy Land. Then, as you want to know more and more about the person,

you start asking questions, like some happy little sessions of trivial pursuit where all the answers are

right.

Soon, though, you may feel like you're in a long cooperative game, like Settlers of Catan.

The rules are weird, none of your friends get what you're doing, there's a lot of wheat for some reason.

From there, the miscommunications start, just like in every game of Pictionary, because that's a cat?

How is that a cat?

Then you start fighting over rent, over property ownership, over houses, which of course, duh, monopoly.

Then come suspicions and accusations, clue. And if you don't break up, you can't help

but play sorry like all the time, except no one's saying it. From there, it's all tick-tack-toe.

No winners, no losers, just a long detaunt. X's and O's once meant kisses and hugs. Then they're just

marks on a page, indicative only of a growing codependency. And finally, just like with chess,

in a relationship, it's eventually checkmate. No hotheads, no need to play code names. You've already realized that this

week's story is about games and game playing. This piece is by writer Maeve Dunnigan. Her work

has been featured in The New Yorker and in McSweeney's, and her first collection of humor pieces

and essays, read this to look Cool, will be published in 2025.

And we don't want any tears or bad sportsmanship.

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