Meg Wolitzer

Charles Dickens brought us that little scamp Pip with all of his great expectations.

But what if you don't have the loyal chums or a mysterious benefactor, and you happen to have a head full of snakes instead of hair?

I'm Meg Wolitzer, and coming up, twisty tales told by characters with modest expectations.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

As a human, it's hard not to get your hopes up.

We're hardwired to get them way up, really.

Whether it's imagining what treasures are hidden in that bin at the garage sale across the street, or dreaming about what our lives might be like by the time we're 40, we don't really limit ourselves.

If we didn't dream big dreams, it'd make the future seem a lot less bright.

The problem is disappointment and what to do with it if things don't quite turn out how we imagined.

Well, so let's try something.

In the next hour, we're going to hear stories that present a kind of thought experiment.

And that experiment is, what if we kept our outsized optimism in a more reasonable place?

What if, unlike Pip in the Dickens classic, we had less than great, even modest expectations?

Today's program explores the pros and cons of carefully tempered expectations.

In one story, a mythological monster ages into her resting witch face.

In another, hesitant parents consider upgrading their kids' online lives.

In a third, a young woman aims for cool around the boys of summer.

And in the final piece, two strangers let dreams blossom and wither during a chance meeting at a flower shop.

This program was also co-curated by our friends in the online collective Bellatrist and the Bellatrist Book Club.