- The RinkUnion That Almost Wasn't -

Friday night, famous mentioned how her mother was interested in the RinkUnion and asking questions about it, and she asked, "Are Sam and Leen going to be there?" famous replied, "It's not a RinkUnion if Sam and Leen aren't there!"

It almost wasn't a RinkUnion. When we got to the Manchester airport and checked in, the lady at the Southwest counter said, "Do you know your license is expired?"

Gasps and disbelief resounded from our side of the counter. Yes, my driver's license expired...eight months ago. Since then, I was in a minor accident. We didn't call the police in, but we exchanged information, submitted it all to the insurance companies, got everything sorted out. I even took out a rental car from the body shop while my car was being worked on. I'm sure I needed to furnish my driver's license to get it. Throughout that whole process, nobody ever noticed.

So it was with considerable trepidation that we ascended the stairs to security, where an imposing man in a TSA uniform -- rather than the cheery Southwest lady -- awaited our identification.

"Unfortunately, this is expired," I said, figuring that honesty was the best policy.

"Yes, that is unfortunate," he said gravely. He examined both our IDs, then our boarding passes, then returned to our IDs and examined them with a dour look on his face.

"I have a military ID, but that's expired, too," I said helpfully. My military ID, which I have because my father was in the army, expired in 1996. I had a social security card, too, but that's useless for identification.

"Darleen...you're going to Philadelphia..." he said after a long while. Philadelphia was our stop-over. "And Sam...you're going to be staying in Manchester for a while."

Well, crud.

"Nah, I'm kidding!" he said, cracking a grin. Leen cracked up. She was mean for cracking up. She should have said, "Not funnyyyy!" as she does when a joke is just too cruel. Sure, it was funny. She just shouldn't have laughed.

It turns out that a driver's license can be expired by up to a year and still be usable for identification for a flight. If it had been expired longer than that, he said I'd probably still be able to fly, but it would "take longer."

He went on to say that he got his job on an expired license, and nobody ever noticed until six months later.


- Welcome to North Carolina -

"What do you think of North Carolina so far?" the man at the car rental place asked, after he learned that we hadn't been there before. (Actually, I had, but that was years ago.)

"Uhhh...love the airport!" I said.

Darleen had to drive the rental car, of course. I didn't have a valid license. Somehow we got into a conversation about couples in cars. The clerk said he can't stand riding in a car when his girlfriend is driving, because it's just too scary. You know you're in the South when introverts like Leen and me can fall naturally into entertaining conversations with people who work in customer service types of positions. It happened with the airport shuttle driver and the hotel receptionist and the lady who took take-out orders at the Macaroni Grill.

During our layover on the way back north, I ordered a chef salad from a lady at the Philadelphia airport. She spoke too softly to hear, and when I asked her to repeat herself, she looked like she'd rather smack me with a flyswatter than serve me. That's more like it.

But back to North Carolina. I was very prepared. Prior to our departure, I printed out maps and directions from the hotel to Steak and Shake, from the hotel to Krispy Kreme, from the hotel to the Duke University campus, from the hotel to the Museum of Life and Science, and a couple of extra general maps of the downtown Raleigh area. So we got in our brand new rental car, and Leen asked me where to go.

I had no idea. Apparently the one set of directions I forgot to print out was the directions to the hotel.

We managed. I worked backwards from the directions I did have, and although we did take a wrong turn at some point, it was easy enough. The hotel, as it turned out, was conveniently located right between Raleigh and Durham and only a few miles from the airport. Denver might have taken a tip from RDU -- it's cool when the airport gets built in the general vicinity of anything else at all.

Issachar, Jacqueline, Maryam, and 10Kan were waiting for us in the hotel lobby. 10Kan (and Counterpoint, who would show up the next morning) were both people I met the first time there. The others I had not seen in far too long.

As always, the Friday night conversation is a high point, and as always I was too tired from travelling to remember most of it. Of course, I told the story of how we almost didn't make it. We ate at the local Cracker Barrel, always a good choice and at this point almost becoming a RinkUnion tradition. Issachar submitted our name -- "Rinkies" -- and we waited 20 minutes or so for a table to become free, during which time we sat outside on the rocking chairs. In due course, the announcement sounded over the loudspeaker: "Rinklies, party of 6 -- Rinklies, party of 6."

10Kan did not order a meal, because he had already eaten. But when one of us needed some ketchup, he dutifully piped up and asked the server, "Can I have some ketchup?" Only belatedly did we wonder what she thought of that.

After we got back, we returned to the lobby. famous and wintermute arrived sometime after we got back. famous had an unfortunate case of pinkeye ("my eye is a hairy situation...the situation, not my eye"), but her spirits were as cheery as ever.

A memorable famousism from this year concerned a box of Altoids: "It says Creme de Menthe. But it means Creme De Mint." Later, we were discussing how the pillow cases on the pillows in the hotel rooms all said "firm" or "soft" on them. She couldn't think of the word "embroidered" and instead substituted "engraved." "Wait, you don't engrave a pillow case...."

That night, Maryam was going to stay at Issachar and Jacqueline's house. Jacqueline said to Maryam, "If you see a Palmetto bug, don't scream, because the cat will attack you." Riotous laughter. Apparently Jacqueline is jumpy around creepy crawly things, and their cat is jumpy around people who scream at creepy crawly things. So if you ever stay at their house, don't freak out at palmetto bugs, or the cat will jump on you and attack.

I experienced her jumpiness firsthand later in the weekend. We were walking outside and talking about ticks (for some reason), when she exclaimed in a panicked voice, "WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR LEG?" Now, I'm not queasy around most things. But ticks give me the creeps. Somehow, however, I kept my cool and calmly if very quickly brushed the piece of dirt off my leg.

But back to Friday night. The seed for RinkUnion VIII's tagline was planted by Jacqueline at some point while we were talking. A natural lull in the conversation hit, and the room went quiet, and Jacqueline turned to Issachar and said, "It's funnier if you're already talking about Batman, but...."

And we exploded with laughter. We didn't have any idea what she was talking about (she was trying to get Issachar to tell a particular story about Batman Begins), and it just seemed so out of the blue. Anyway, we wound up spending the rest of the weekend saying things like "While we're on the subject of Batman..." and "Speaking of Batman..." when we weren't, and weren't going to be. Of course, wintermute and Maryam had to wear their Batman shirts the next day. But for all the talk of Batman that weekend, there was very little talk of Batman.


- Saturday Morning -

It was sounding like we might not get access to the conference room until 9 that morning, so I wasn't worried about getting down there by 8:39. The room had two doors, and for some reason they set up one of the tables just inside the more conspicuous of the two. I wasn't the only one who tried entering through that one first, only to bash into a table on the other side. We moved that table out of the way.

That wasn't the only reorganization we did, either. The room was set up in the usual classroom style, with enough seats for 32 people. It would have been silly with 9, so we took three tables, mashed them into one, and all sat around it. It had a very RU1 kind of feel to it, which was nice.

famous and wintermute were the first ones down, followed by me, and then Counterpoint, who met the three of us all of a sudden and seemed a little weirded out by the realization that Rinkies exist in the flesh. But as always happens at RinkUnions, where even the least social of us fall into an easy rapport, minutes later he seemed perfectly comfortable. Leen showed up a moment later, and we ate breakfast while we were waiting for the others. 10Kan appeared, and then Issachar and Maryam.

The first order of business, as always, was to give out the swag. I gave out RinkWorks superballs, mini mechanical pencils (they're CUTE, 'cause they're SMALL), and switch-rulers. The switch-rulers were admittedly not quite as cool as RU6's switch-microwaves, but they had "Folding Ruler" printed on them IN THE RINKWORKS FONT, which was especially noticeable with the capital R in "Ruler," and so I just had to get them. Besides, if you're ever in a dark alley, and someone attacks you, you can whip that thing out and...MEASURE something. (Or "size each other up," as Iss put it.) You never know when this might come in handy. Hopefully people were able to smuggle them on the plane home ok. I was.

famous and wintermute had things to give out, too. We had the choice of a Cincinnati teddy bear and a Cincinnati foam baseball bat. Predictably, all the girls picked bears, and all the boys picked bats.

Counterpoint gave away stuff too, namely, various toys he had as a kid and found under his bed and is trying to get rid of, because he's just keeping "the cool stuff." He must be keeping pretty cool stuff, because the *uncool* stuff included a working catapult, a working shark mouth, and a deformed deflated plastic alien. ("It turns out, this is gross," I said as I gave the alien back to Counterpoint on Sunday night, because nobody wanted to claim it, or, you know, touch it.)

famous took the shark mouth and bit her bear's nose with it. "You're mean!" Leen said. "I'm just kidding," famous replied. The rest of us made jokes about a shark holding a bear.

wintermute used the catapult to fling things at people all day. Somehow I wound up with that one. It will return to fling things at people at future RinkUnions.

I read selected stupid emails from the last two years. Those, plus additional unread emails, have been posted now. A surprising number of these were from people trying to place orders for things I don't sell. The most memorable was someone who made a ranting complaint about the conservative political slant of my Crazy Libs feature. I remember being absolutely aghast. Crazy Libs? Political?? When I replied I had no idea what he was talking about, he said, "I am probably misunderstanding something. What does 'Crazy Libs' mean, anyway?" Think about it.

WhizHal was not able to attend the RinkUnion, but he wrote a special haiku for the occasion, which I read for him:

Attention Rinkies,
I don't get why girls are cool.
Bock bock bock bock bock.

Since I happened to have the sheet with me, and most of us there hadn't been to RU7, I read the "Guess the Rinkie" quiz, wherein people have to identify who said what. Among the most recognizable were the immortal quotes, "It's a good day for a funeral in West Lebanon, New Hampshire," "Murkon steps in to turn your quest upsidedown... literaly!" and "Peeps cussed at me in a chat room!"

famous tried to snip off her bear's nose with the switch-ruler.

Then we played a new game (apologies to Nyperold), which I call "WhizHal or Nyperold?" I read a quote from RinkChat, and people have to guess whether it was originally spoken by WhizHal or Nyperold. People got most of them, although people split on several. I stumped everybody with one ("Hey, I've been part of an expedition on Mars and a character meeting the schoolboy who created him. I don't know what they're doing.") which was Nyperold, and relieved everybody with another ("Hoorah, some people like to dress me.") which was not.

Jacqueline showed up part way through the memory game, which, as is the tradition, closed out the morning session. As she arrived part way through, she was at a disadvantage for not having heard most of the initial answers, but she retroactively provided answers of her own. You'd think with nine people, the game would be easier, but you'd be wrong. People seem to remember roughly the same percentage of answers, regardless of the number of people playing. I recall the first RinkUnion, which had only a few people, and only Darien and Mina scored perfectly.

I added a fourth question this time, though, the answers for which had to be scribbled in the tiny margin beside the usual grid. For the most part, we repeated questions from previous years, because I forgot to think up new ones. They were: (1) favorite sound, (2) a profession you'd like to have other than the one you already have, (3) if you could have any one superpower, what would it be?, and (4) do you like cheese? I don't remember who suggested this last one, but it sounded good enough. The caveat was that you couldn't answer just "yes" or "no" -- you had to elaborate.

There were a great many memorable answers, too many to list here. But I'll hit on a few.

For her superpower, famous wanted "selective permanent memory," because she hates forgetting things, but wouldn't want to remember everything. By the time we got up to reviewing our answers, she had forgotten hers.

Her desired profession was "Mountain Dew quality assurance inspector." I think most of us would be happy in that job. Jacqueline's desired profession was "nothing." I think most of us would be happy in that job.

By far the most memorable and repeated throughout the weekend was wintermute's superpower: the ability to shoot lasers out of other people's eyes -- an in-joke born out of LaZorra typing "Can you fly? Or shoot lasers from our eyes?" when she meant "your." Some of the joking that followed: do-it-yourself dental work. You need a dentist, but all you need to do is hold his head above your mouth.

Scenario:

"Are you looking at the right spot?"
"Yes."
"Are you SURE you're looking at the right spot?"
"Yes. Go ahead and shoot."
"Ok, here goes."
"WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR LEG?"
ZZZOT!
OOOOWW!
(cat attacks)

Issachar won the game with a perfect score. Counterpoint came in a very close second, losing only by half a point. So he got one of the extra superballs I had. Issachar won the Official RinkWorks Cat Bowl, a small stainless steel bowl that any cat worth anything would be able to overturn with ease.


- Steak and Shake -

Californians swear by In-and-Out. I have not yet had the pleasure, and so I will exclude it from the following superlative: Steak and Shake is the best fast food place on the planet. They are found primarily in the midwest and a small number of locations in the South. We don't get them in New England, sadly. The burgers are made from steak meat, so they're that much better tasting. The fries are thin and cute, and you can get them with cheese. The milkshakes come in a ton of flavorful...flavors. You can even get Sundae shakes and sip caramel through a straw, which is pure ecstasy.

The service is not always as exquisite. Although Leen and I never had a problem, famous and wintermute find them too slow. They were slow this time, too, but in the grand scheme of things, the slowness wasn't that big a deal. The service we got that day is now tied for the worst restaurant service I've ever gotten, the other occasion being one time at Friendly's when I'm convinced the waiter was stoned ("How is everything?" / "We haven't gotten our food yet." / "Ok, but, aside from that?"). For some reason, we got two servers. I think it's because one of them was new and in training, although she seemed to be the one telling the other guy what to do.

But despite allegedly working together, they couldn't figure out how to coordinate and take our orders. They had a difference of opinion about how to divide the table up, and somehow a couple of us on each end ordered (one person was asked for an order by each of them), and then they both disappeared. With four of us left to order, we just sort of looked at each other befuddledly and wondering why they left. I thought it was my fault. In the course of conversation, I mentioned that I was from New Hampshire. The waitress said, "New Hampshire! I'm going to have to tell the manager that!" and then she walked away. But I don't think she went to tell the manager right then and there, because she was yakking away at a cook or something.

Eventually they both came back, separately, and without having any idea what the other was doing. The remaining orders were taken, though not without a great deal of confusion and far more clarifications than should have been necessary. They were obviously frustrated at each other. "I've only been here six days," the waitress explained.

Then it was a long wait. We didn't mind, because we were just having fun talking with each other and drawing pictures on the placemats with crayons. (Jacqueline, it turns out, can draw cute little animals -- and then make them evil by adding on slanted eyebrows.)

Then, finally, the food came. Some of it.

I think the initial wave was mostly correct. Some people had salads or appetizers that were supposed to come early, and I think those were right -- although it was very odd that Counterpoint, who ordered an entree salad for his meal, was served with cups of dressing during the appetizer course and his salad later. Odd, but certainly not unacceptable.

When the rest of the food came, it was all wrong. Moreover, it arrived so haphazardly it was difficult to figure *out* how wrong it was. Nobody knew who ordered what, so they had to ask, for every entree, "Who had the [whatever]?" Since most of what they have are steak burgers, some differing only by the requested toppings, this was not always easy. Yes, I had the double bacon cheeseburger, but so did others. What's on it? Looks like...lettuce. Yeah, I had lettuce, and no one else seems to want to claim it. Must be mine.

But then she started asking who had meals that *nobody* ordered. And who had the iced tea? Well, no one.

It was unclear how many batches of food they were bringing out, but when it was clear they thought they'd brought the last of it out, it gradually sunk in just how much they'd screwed up. I was missing a plate of large cheese fries and my shake, and my burger didn't have mayonnaise on it. All around the table, gradually people piped up to remind the waitress of something that was missing. "Shouldn't a mushroom and onion burger have onions on it?" wintermute wondered. One by one, the corrections were dictated to the waitress, who kept wanting to leave after each one, but, no, there's also this other problem, and this other problem, and this other problem. She wasn't writing a single thing down, which did not build the confidence, but she assured us she'd have it all straightened out.

When the corrections came, they were wrong too. I think she just started serving random food at us in the hopes that she'd guess right. The large cheese fries Leen and I were going to split, for example, became two small fries with no cheese. I did eventually get my shake -- when we were done eating -- but I never did get the missing mayonnaise.

"I'm really sorry," the waitress said. "It's only my fifth day here."

We wondered how long it would take her to get down to, "It's my fourth day here," and ultimately, "It's my first day here," and perhaps even, "I actually don't start until tomorrow," or "I don't really work here at all -- I just intercept orders and eat them."

You might think our waitress was not a very good waitress. True, she wasn't. But the bill, when it came, pointed the blame squarely at the cooks. Except for the rogue iced tea, the bill reflected what we had ordered, not what we were brought. Even if they had tried to correct the bill before we got it, there's no way they would have corrected it properly, because we wound up settling for food we didn't technically order (like our two small fries with a side of cheese, instead of one large cheese fries). Because of this, I left a small tip. I still probably shouldn't have, because if the cooks screw up, the servers should recognize those errors and get them corrected before the customers ever know the difference. But hey, it was only her third day.

The poor service turned us off from going back. We wanted to, because in spite of all that, the food was still great, and it is so rare that we get the chance to eat at Steak and Shake. My (half joking but half serious) plan was to eat there for every meal. But we didn't end up going back.


- Saturday Afternoon -

We must all be getting old or something. You're not supposed to sleep at RinkUnions, but after we got back to the room, everybody seemed to want to take naps. So we had Official RinkWorks Naps. Maryam stretched out on the floor and dozed off. famous went up to the room to sleep. Leen went to watch the Olympics. 10Kan, Counterpoint, Issachar, and wintermute played Labyrinth, a European board game from the 80s (by the makers of Enchanted Forest!). The game involves navigating an ever-changing dungeon maze in search of treasure. The treasures are all different, and the particular ones you're looking for are determined by drawing cards. ("You're looking for a treasure chest," wintermute noted, "and I'm looking for a *moth*.")

After people reassembled, we did the "do something to entertain us" stuff, which has always been a highlight for me, because I'm constantly amazed and amused at what people wind up doing. famous recited Dr. Seuss's ABC book from memory. 10Kan gave a tearful reading of the pain poem. Issachar gave a soulful recital of A POEM BY ME. Jacqueline performed her bird impression, which totally had nothing to do with operating a bird-noise-making device under the table and lip-synching to it. But, see, here is why this part of the RinkUnion is cool: Counterpoint performed a piece on his french horn, and 10Kan demonstrated an unconventional way to snap his fingers. That's yin and yang, right there. And, obviously, Issachar danced like M.C. Hammer.

We rounded out the official festivities with a competitive reading of The Eye of Argon, which is to novellas as Sinbad of the Seven Seas is to movies. The challenge is to read as much of it as you can without breaking up in laughter. When (not if) you do, the person next to you takes over, starting with the sentence you cracked up on. Play continues around the table for as long as it takes. This is a great way to injure people from excessive laughter, and Rinkies are good at doing that to themselves even without assistance. Counterpoint, unfortunately, had to leave part-way into the reading -- inexplicably, to see The Mummy 3, which ultimately didn't amount to much of a change of activity for him.

The wake of The Eye of Argon, famous's pinkeye turned into "pale shade of red organs of sight."

Dinner was consumed at Panera's, which had great service but no food. They were out of so many breads, it was sounding like the Cheese Shop sketch. But the food was terrific and really hit the spot. Leen stayed at the hotel, but I brought her a strawberry and poppy seed salad, which she said was delicious. (For a moment, I thought I was out of luck -- the guy said they were out of that, but then the cook piped up that he could make one more.)

I'm not quite sure what happened the rest of Saturday night. Saturday nights at RUs, for some reason I'm more tired than I ever am at any other time. famous and wintermute hung out in our hotel room for a little while after we all adjourned. Right after they left, I suddenly got all dizzy. It was crazy cool, because the floor was tipping all over the place, back and forth and side to side really fast, like I was on a raft at sea and someone was hitting the fast forward button. I couldn't hold my balance without holding onto the walls, and when I collapsed in bed, I hyperventilated and almost died. That's never happened to me before. It ruled.


- The Duke University Gardens -

Sunday morning was a miscalculation. I figured we'd visit the Duke University Gardens, which are elaborate and beautiful, and then go visit the Museum of Life and Science nearby. What I hadn't counted on was the gardens being as massive as they were. By the time we were done with those, everyone was too exhausted to do any further walking.

But the gardens were, indeed, elaborate and beautiful -- a great place to walk when the weather isn't too hot. And it wasn't, although I spent all weekend explaining to the native North Carolinian contingent of Rinkies just how unbelievably, phenomenally hot it was when we stepped off the plane: 86 degrees! Of course this is cool for North Carolina in summer (and not unusual in New Hampshire anyway), but weather jokes are always amusing, albeit probably only to me.

Actually, it rained. Blame me. All year, it's excessively been precipitative in New Hampshire, from the record 120+ inches of snow over the winter (double the average) to the constantly rainy spring and summer. But apparently North Carolina was in a drought up until that point, so obviously we brought the rain with us.

The rain held off long enough for us to admire the rose garden part and meander through the garden of native plants, which included a swampy pond where we saw a great blue heron and a turtle. "Us," I should say, lacked Maryam, Issachar, and Jacqueline at this point, but they were not behind us by much, maybe a little more than 30 minutes. 10Kan met us at the gardens, arriving just about when we did.

We found an open spot to wait for MIJ and resumed wandering when they found us. Part way through our circuit of the gardens, we detoured onto the campus to see the chapel, which is a huge, monolithic stone cathedral-like building that is really far too gothic for anything on this continent. It, and in fact the rest of the architecture on the campus, looks like it came out of England rather than anything in the Americas, and I guess that was the intent. I loved it. It reminded me of when I used to live in England.

There was a service going on in the chapel at the time, so we couldn't wander in and gawk up at the ceiling while your neck gets sore, which is what you're supposed to do in cathedrals, but we got to stand in the entryway for a little while and peek in at the stained glass and let the echoing tones of the sermon in progress envelop us. If the phrase "hallowed halls" is not evocative to you, enter a place like this, then look and listen.

The downpour began in earnest just as we were reaching the chapel, and so we took shelter there for a little while. Issachar took the lone umbrella we had among us and made a run for other umbrellas he had in his car. But before he returned, the rain subsided to a dull patter, and then we realized that the patter was no more than water dripping off the trees. So we headed back for the gardens. On the way back, the four flights of stone steps went down, rather than up, and this was a good thing.

Back in the gardens, we examined such artifacts of nature as humongous lily pads (2+ feet in diameter), a twisty old magnolia tree, a rock garden (to climb on), and a pond with ducks.


- Chez Issachar -

Hot and exhausted, we exited the gardens and made a beeline for Ben & Jerry's. Then we realized, hey, maybe we should actually eat lunch before ice cream. So we walked around the corner to a grocery store with a buffet/cafe in it, ate, and THEN went to the Ben & Jerry's.

From there, we went to Issachar and Jacqueline's house (some of us by way of the hotel, to change into non-nasty clothes). They have a nice place, and it was perfect for the crowd we had. I'm a little fuzzy on what happened there, because I was tired again. Old 80s arcade games were played. Maryam and Counterpoint both played pieces on the piano. I noticed as Maryam played that Counterpoint listened with his eyes shut, and from the look on his face, it was obvious he was hearing the music with much greater perception than the rest of us were. Music moves me as it moves anybody. It can be indescribably beautiful and evocative in a way no other form of art can. But what is it about the musically-minded that they hear and perceive (as I suspect, anyway) so much more than the rest of us do?

Issachar pulled out a Scrabble board at one point, and four of us played Scrabble according to some very loose rules. It was unscored, and words did not really have to be words at all, just something amusing or significant to RinkWorks or the RinkUnion. I didn't play, but in honor of The Eye of Argon, I raided the stockpile of tiles so I could form "MRIFK." I had it play it with some of the tiles outside the playing grid. That set a precedent, as future words extended entirely off the board and onto the table.

Following that, and entirely on a whim, I sat at the coffee table and motioned to Counterpoint, who was sitting across from me. "You and me," I said. "StoryBot." I formed the first word, "I," and set it on the table.

Counterpoint rummaged and ruminated for a while, and shortly he formed the word "EET" and set it next to the "I." Obviously at that point I had no choice but to continue with "YOR," but that left Counterpoint with a dilemma. Complete the phrase as it is known, or throw in a twist? He ultimately decided on the latter, playing "CRED" (as in, street cred).

That left me to start the next sentence. I thought, well, what happens when you eat someone's cred? Let's find out. So I played "NOW." Counterpoint followed with the cringingly economical "U," and I responded in kind with "R." That left the ball in his court again, the possibilities endless. He chose the word "NUTHIN," and I followed up with "LIKE." Again, the ball was in his court. Why he then played "DAN," I have no idea. But I figured I had to define who we were talking about, and so I played "RATHER."

I EET YOR CRED.
NOW U R NUTHIN LIKE DAN RATHER.

Pretty good so far, but where do we go from here? Something about Judi Dench's wigs, naturally, and blowing up queens. After the third and fourth sentences were completed, we decided they read better the other way around, and so we swapped them. That left a pittance of tiles left to finish the story off, and most of them were vowels anyway. We formed the letters into a goofy name and turned an "I" sideways, so it looked like the attribution of a famous quotation. The full text:

I EET YOR CRED.
NOW U R NUTHIN LIKE DAN RATHER.
STOP LEAVING BOMBS ON EVERY QUEEN.
GO LOPE DAME JUDI D'S WIGS
- AFALAXA FITZ COATI

Line 3 should be read in the voice of one of the Teen Girl Squad, saying, "I have a crush on every boy!"

- Sinbad of the Seven Doughnuts -

The airing of "Sinbad of the Seven Seas" is an established RinkUnion ritual now, but it's never been as grand as this time. This time, we got to see the movie on the big screen, or at least a pretty big screen. Issachar's parents have a small theater room in their house with a projector. It fit eight people comfortably (Leen opted out), and 10Kan and Counterpoint, neither of whom had seen the movie before, were given the two best seats.

Were there doughnuts?

Yes. Of course there were doughnuts. What kind of a RinkUnion would it be without doughnuts? They were beautiful doughnuts.

From Krispy Kreme, of course. We don't get Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the northeast very easily. Whenever Leen and I travel south or west, the highlights of the trip are Steak and Shake and Krispy Kreme. The service at Krispy Kreme, I am happy to say, was superior to that at Steak and Shake, which is to say that we received our doughnuts in a reasonable length of time, the orders were all correct, and nobody was charged for phantom iced tea.

The movie was great...again...of course. The big screen does improve the movie, because Lou Ferrigno's pectorals are even huger.

- Bojangles -

Dinner was at Bojangles, a fast food chicken place they have down there that we don't have up here. You know you're in the South when the beverage selection gets all weird on you. I ordered a meal, and he entered it into his computer and recited the order in the microphone to the kitchen. Then I said, "Pepsi to drink," and he said, "Oh, you want to change it to Pepsi?" And I'm all, "Huh?" and he's all, "It comes with sweet tea. But you can change it to Pepsi."

In New England, you're lucky if restaurants even serve iced tea, and it'll never be sweet tea, although New Englanders don't necessarily distinguish between the two. It's never the default drink that comes with a meal deal.

It's weirder than that. I know this is something very widespread in many parts of the country, but it's WRONG. Somebody ahead of me in line ordered a soda, and the guy intoned, "Coke," into the microphone. Then he specified what KIND of Coke he meant and said, "Pepsi."

This was much like what Leen and I experienced in the Ruby Tuesday we ate at the following day. "Can I get you anything?" the waiter said when he first came over. "Sweet tea? Cokes?"

Why, yes. Yes, I'd like a Coke. A Mountain Dew Coke.

- Goodbyes -

Sadly, we said goodbye. The native North Carolinians went home. famous and wintermute and I went back to the hotel, rejoined Leen, and the four of us stayed up too late talking again. "Too late" was earlier than usual, though; as I said before, we must be getting old or something.

- The Day After -

We were surprised to see famous and wintermute back at the hotel as we were eating breakfast. Their flight had been cancelled, and they were put on a flight that evening. They figured they'd catch a movie (The Dark Knight, obviously) while they were waiting. When they headed off to do that, Leen and I made for the Museum of Life and Science, to find both a geocache and to see, you know, the actual museum.

The museum is more outdoors than indoors. The complex includes a Butterfly House (very cool, but not as large as the one in Denver, which Leen and I visited in the wake of RU7) and a walk around a wildlife area, where bears are. Bears, wolves, and...lemurs. And farm animals like burros, sheep, pigs, and ducks. I'm not quite sure who was in charge of animal selection (we saw signs for a forthcoming dinosaur reserve), but watching the bears and lemurs at play, up close, was great. (The wolves were hiding in their dens, but we did get to see them on a screen, as there was a camera mounted inside one of their holes.) Leen managed to get several great shots of the bears, especially after the screaming kids went away and the bears deigned to get anywhere near the viewing area.

- South of the Border -

On Tuesday, Leen and I drove down to South Carolina. Well, she did. I didn't have my license, remember. Our initial plan was just to cross the border and find a geocache (Leen wants to get a geocache in every state). South of the border, there is a place called "South of the Border."

I remembered 10Kan mentioning this place earlier in the weekend. He said, "If you see signs for South of the Border, just keep driving." His advice didn't really sink in until we saw the place and realized how apt it was. It's not just that South of the Border was dumpy...it was also trashy.

I can't even describe how it felt going into this place. I couldn't stop laughing, and yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was afraid for my life. South of the Border is the absolute gaudiest place I have ever been to. It's like an amusement park, only without the amusement. It's a tourist trap, basically, except that there is nothing to tour. It's an entirely manufactured attraction, a complex of buildings painted in hideously clashing colors, presided over by a humongous statue of the place's mascot, who is named Pedro, a blatantly politically incorrect stereotypical Mexican bandito who is featured on MILLIONS of billboards advertising South of the Border up to 175 miles away.

I'm serious. I've never seen more billboards than on that stretch of I-95 leading to it, and half of them, seemingly, advertise South of the Border. But why? It's not like you could possibly miss the place, and in any case you'd never want to go there. (Side note: see the Wikipedia page on "South of the Border (attraction)" for more information about the place, plus pictures of some of the crazy billboard advertisements.)

But we went there. The geocache we found was actually in it, so we sort of had to. Now, I've never seen an amusement park that could be mistaken for a ghetto, but...well, I have now. The really eerie, creepy thing is that the place was obviously set up to accommodate Disneyland-sized crowds -- BUT THERE WAS NO ONE THERE. We wandered up and down paths lined with gift shops and food stands, each one painted a different offensive color and emblazoned with cheesy advertising slogans in gigantic lettering. AND NO ONE WAS THERE.

Well, so maybe it's closed. Right? Wrong! IT WAS OPEN. Creepy as all get-out. We went into a couple of the gift shops. There were clerks behind the counters to greet us. One was stocking shelves with kitschy souvenirs (with "SOB" on them). The word "souvenir" means "to remember." You buy souvenirs to remember some special place. Why, then, would someone buy South of the Border souvenirs? To remember the souvenir shop you bought it from?

The two shops we went into stunk. They stunk in different ways. One stunk like when you get a towel wet, and it's too humid to air dry, even after three days. The other stunk like it used to be a barn, and it wasn't cleaned very well when the drywall was nailed up.

I bought a couple of South of the Border decks of cards. You know, to remember the shops by.


- Myrtle Beach -

We shouldn't have driven from there to Myrtle Beach, since we had to be back at the hotel that evening, but we did. Myrtle Beach has an interesting mix of trashy deep fried food stands and gorgeously ritzy hotels. Something for all levels of economic prosperity. The beach itself was nice, although not especially beautiful. It seems to be as manufactured a tourist destination as South of the Border, really, because there are lots of other stretches of beaches on the east coast that are more beautiful, less crowded, and equally conducive to swimming. But if you want to stay at a nice place, see fancy dinner shows, browse gift shops, or order fried food from a walk-up window, it seems like a good place to be. I got a couple of corn dogs from a walk-up window. I hadn't ever had proper corndogs before, and now I think I'm ruined on the frozen kind. They were just fantastic.


- Home Again -

The next day, we went home.