The Road Trip

So last night, Halloween Night, Joey and I said goodbye to his wife and kids and to my roommates, and at 10:15 we set off on a road trip. Destination: Iowa City, Iowa, the NonfictioNow Conference.

Our first stop was to put air in the tires and get some cash. Our second stop was buy some pound-its from Burger King. While placing my order I fell into a quick rapport wth the sultry telex voice; we psuedo-flirted as I asked for a 5-piece nuggets and a couple rodeo burgers. I said, "Hey, that's it," to which she responded, "Second window, dear." Does this ever happen to anyone else?

When we pulled up to the second window we saw two possible owners of the voice—an 18ish-year-old girl dressed up as an electrical outlet and an 18ish-year-old girl dressed up as a Burger King drive-thru worker. She turned out to be the latter, and our just-because-were-a-customer-and-a-worker tone continuedas she handed out the goods. We even sweettalked her into giving us some Halloween candy (we chose Dots, of course).

From there it was pretty much a straight shot west across Ohio and Indiana and Illinois, me driving, Joey pretending to sleep. I listened to the first chapter of David Copperfield, Tusk by Fleetwood Mac, Love by the Beatles, Continuum by John Mayer, and one story from Carry On, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse. Joey took over at around 5 in the morning, somewhere outside of Peoria, and we chatted the rest of the way into town.

At some point in the night Joey was distracting me with words and I almost took an off-ramp too rapidly. Joey nearly ran down a coyote that couldn't decide whether it wanted to cross the street or not.

At 7 am (central time) we walked into the conference and became the first people to register. Then we sat around trying not to fall asleep and waiting to see our friends Dinty and Pat. All in all it has been a good trip so far, but you will of course excuse me if I do not finish listing the full events of the day at this time. It is nearly midnight, and I haven't slept for something like 40 hours (except for some dozing during the conference). More to follow; in the meantime I remain affectionately yours, and co., etc.,

S. David Grover