I saw this in the feed and my first reaction was "Cool, good story, guess I can skip this episode, I remember we read this in the 7th grade, very sad. Well, I'll listen to the intro and outros."
But after the intro I just kept listening. I'm so glad I did.
Dave Thompson, your reading of this story was masterful. I never thought about how hard it would be to bring the story to audio, so much of the story is conveyed in spelling and punctuation, and Dave you brought these attributes to your speech, in a way I could hear spelling mistakes in your voice. That is talent, I could almost be inclined to call this the best reading ever.
And to Alistair, and to the wonderful late Mr. Keyes, damn you both for making me bawl my eyes out on on the drive to work.
After listening to this story I feel driven to embellish my speech with long words, hope no one listening to this has sesquipedalophobia.