Ira Glass

Or were they like out in the field, you know, like spying, like pretending to be people who they aren't, you know, like carrying a gun?

Were they that kind of CIA employees?

Pete says before this, he just hadn't really thought much about his parents and their wives and their jobs.

He was a kid.

He once asked his mom, like, what do you actually do at your government job all day long?

Which I have to say, I bet there were meetings and memos, so it's like that isn't a 100% lie.

It's just leaving some stuff out.

In retrospect, Pete says, there were clues that he could have maybe picked up on.

His mom spoke several languages.

The family lived most of his life in other countries.

His dad owned a 9mm pistol and was always up at 4 in the morning to go running on a track.

It was the fact that his parents didn't have friends and never had anybody over to the house, which of course doesn't mean that you're a spy, but still.

Wait, anytime you'd go to the mall, your mom would remind you of this?

At the time, he says he chalked it up to 1990s Stranger Danger stuff, but later learned that other parents do not do this.

But he told me there was one more clue about his parents' jobs, a clue that was sitting right there during the years they moved back to Virginia.

Wait, what?

To be clear, they weren't literally across the street, but in a neighborhood right across the street.

Door to door, less than five minutes.

Pete's parents are both dead now.

They both retired from the CIA after long careers, which is why it's okay to talk about it here on the radio, by the way.