It's This American Life. I'm Hannah Jaffe-Walt sitting in for Ira Glass.
I've been talking to someone here and there over the last couple of months about a situation she's in.
And I think she typifies the thing we're going to try to do in this episode.
So I'd like you to meet her.
Her name is Annika Barber.
She's a scientist, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, a runner.
She's got purple hair and a particular way of organizing the world around her.
Her books?
Organized topically and then by height.
Her lab, color-coded labels.
I also track how many days of the year my husband eats pizza and I make a chart of it.
He's really into pizza.
So sometimes I just like to have...
Wait, wait, wait.
Why?
Why do you do that?
So my husband really can't go 24 hours without talking about pizza.
So last year I accused him of talking about pizza every day and he swore he didn't.
And I was like, I really think you do.
And so starting in January of this year, I said that for 2025,