Visiting my old elementary school, I tell a ten-year-old girl that her method of inquiry is much like mine. She seems bored. We are marched into the hall and lined up single file to watch a group of children eat their lunches. Evidently our own needs have been neglected. On the way to the bathroom, which is nothing more than a ceramic urinal, I complain about the headmistress to my mother.

Perched on a billboard, the editor and the intern perform a one-act riddle about homemade explosives at the hospice. It ends with not one bang but two: BANG, BOOM.

Ramon and Jessica ask me to play a short solo on a many-colored glockenspiel. My heart lifts.

Stepping off the company plane, I must park a Volkswagen Golf.