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This week's episode of Sound Effect contains adult language that, while "bleeped," may not be suitable for all audiences. This week, some of our favorite stories of how money drives the choices we make. Host Gabriel Spitzer plays a game of Job Title Bingo . Ed Ronco gets a history lessons from Bill Kurtis on skyjacker D.B. Cooper. Writer Paulette Perhach makes the case for creating a fund specifically in order to escape a bad relationshiup or job. Nick Morrison talks about his experience working

This story originally aired on May 7, 2016. Being involved in a startup can be exhausting, expensive, stressful and risky. As a result, the people involved in such ventures can often be found taking their work, and themselves, pretty seriously. Bridget Quigg is a Seattle writer who has worked in the tech world for a decade. She recently completed the run of her one-woman show " Techlandia ," which skewers startup culture — with love. The show satirizes all angles of startups and their employees,

This story originally aired on July 16, 2016. The following essay contains adult language that may not be suitable for all audiences. It was originally published on Billfold (which, by the way, makes no attempt to obscure the potentially objectionable language). You’re telling your own story: You graduated college and you’re a grown-ass woman now. Tina Fey is your hero; Beyoncé, your preacher. You know how to take care of you. You’ve learned self-defense. If any man ever hit you, you’d rip his

This story originally aired on October 15, 2016. Sometimes what we do as children traps us in time. The rest of the world will forever equate you with what you did when you were young, even as you grow beyond whatever it was that gave you that label in the first place. This is what happened to 17-year-old Marcelas Owens of Seattle. When Marcelas was 8 years old, his mother, Tiffany Owens, died from pulmonary hypertension. This is when your lungs have high blood pressure. People can live a long

In 1931 in the small southeast Washington town of Asotin, a 12 year old boy named Herbert Nicholls Jr. shot and killed the town sheriff. Nicholls was starving and abused, and had run away from home and broken into the local store to steal some food. The sheriff came in to find him, and Nicholls fired the gun with the intent to scare him away. The bullet hit the sheriff in the head, killing him instantly. Nancy Bartley wrote the biography on Nicholls, titled The Boy Who Shot the Sheriff: The

My first job in broadcasting came in 1992, in Canton, Ohio, when someone decided that I should be the guy to read the morning announcements at GlenOak High School. You know the announcements -- they play over the school’s PA system and update the student body on vital news, such as where to buy raffle tickets or what the cafeteria is serving for dessert. Each day I’d tick down the list of announcements, and then sign off: “Those are the announcements, I’m Gabriel Spitzer, have a great day.”

This week, stories of childhood mischief. First, host Gabriel Spitzer shares some mischief from his childhood, when he took some poetic liberties during the morning announcements in middle school. Next, a woman talks about a mathematical discovery she made in third grade, and how it likely kept her from working hard in her education from then on. Also, a man reflects on his capture of an octopus , and the attention he got from it. Finally, woman reflects on her experiences with her shoplifting

Back in 2012 Dylan Mayer was 19 years old. He was a few years into a new passion: scuba diving. He says spending time under water in Puget Sound is like visiting an alien planet full of strange creatures. “There is a large fish down there called a Cabazon. It’s a large fish. It’s and ugly fish. And, it will come right up to you. It will nudge you with it’s nose and its face. It’s very curious about what you are,” said Dylan. Dylan grew up in Maple Valley Washington, just outside of the liberal

"When I was 11, my mother had me quite well trained for a certain job. But then she fired me from this job. She fired me because I was not cooperating with her shoplifting escapades." So begins Silvana Clark's story of rebellion. Clark is a writer and speaker based in Bellingham. When she was a kid, one of her main jobs was to accompany her mother to the supermarket, and position herself just so at the far end of the cart. "That way she could put steaks and expensive items into her purse, and if

Koleka Furlett can’t even count the number of times she’s tested her math trick on a chalkboard with numbers ranging in the millions and billions. It’s a trick she came up with in the third grade when she was first learning her multiplication tables. Koleka noticed a pattern when multiplying numbers by five that made for a handy shortcut. Basically, whatever number you want to multiply by 5, divide it in half and stick a 0 on the end. (For example, 16 x 5. Half of 16 is 8, then stick a 0 on the