Part 2: I Can't Drive Twenty-Five

Let me start by saying that I did *not* get us lost. The people who got us lost are the ones who kept changing the road names on us, putting up signs that the exit for Hwy. 1234 was up ahead, and then calling it the "Penn Turnpike" when you actually get to the exit. Okay, so we wouldn't have even been in that fix if I hadn't missed the entrance to the New Jersey Turnpike (cleverly concealed behind the massive Delaware State Bridge) and kept going on I-95 through Philadelphia, but that's beside the point. The point is that we were lost and wasting time, and it wasn't my fault no matter what Mrs. Iss says.

Once my trusty (if occasionally sarcastic) navigator got us un-lost, we hied across New Jersey and New York, on into Connecticut, making pretty good time until we suddenly encountered *every single driver in the state of Connecticut*, all of whom were lined up waiting to get past a section of road under construction. While we sat there I pondered the magnitude of the suckage with which coming to a dead stand-still in the middle of an all-day drive sucks. "This sucks with a mighty sucking!" I cried, adding, "Suckitude, thy name is Connecticut!"

But my bluster was to no avail, as the traffic whammied us again in Massachusetts, and even yet again in New Hampshire. It was 6:00pm when we finally, finally pulled into Manchester, NH, which Sam, with his usual knack for turning a phrase, later described as "the armpit of New Hampshire." As we rolled slowly down the cracked pavement, Jacqueline and I sang a paean to the city:

Ba-da, ba-da -- won't you take me TOOO... a DUMPY TOWN...
Ba-da, ba-da -- won't you take me TOOO...

We checked into an EconoLodge one block from the Comfort Inn where the convention was to be held, and quickly gussied ourselves up before heading over to the Comfort Inn to see if anyone was already there. I have stayed in few motel rooms smaller than our EconoLodge accommodations. The only one, in fact, that comes immediately to mind is the room at the YMCA in downtown Manhattan, where the handicapped-accessible shower stall was considerably more capacious than the room for whose use I paid $85 in legal tender.

When we finally got over to the Comfort Inn, I inquired after Sam Stoddard, a name that elicited as befuddled an expression as I could have gotten with "what's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" They'd never heard of any "Sam Stoddard". Fortunately they *had* heard of our Dictator-for-Life Stephen, whom they'd seen just a little earlier with a handful of other people. (Yep, a handful of people. That's how big a guy Stephen is.) We walked across the street to look for them at Subway and Applebee's, and not finding anyone, walked back across the street to try the motel lobby again.

*** NOTICE: If you're starting to snooze through this account, WAKE UP because this is the part where we meet MOUSIE! ***

You'll never guess who was standing in the lobby when we returned: Mousie!!! Even if I hadn't sort of recognized her face, you could tell she warn't from around thar. She was kempt and in a state of total array, for one thing. The three of us said our hello's and Mousie used her 733t Californian powers to contact Stephen (I think they must issue a cell phone to everyone in California at birth). Minutes later, Stephen and his co-dictator Mia joined us in the lobby and, after I prostrated myself a few times as a true sycophantic lieutenant who curries favor while secretly plotting the untimely demise of his lord should do, (pause, take breath), we went *back* across the street to track down the others who had already arrived: Sam, Leen, famous, Ellmyruh, Ayako, Matthew and Cynthia.

Lemme hold down Fast-Forward for a moment: [meet the others] [exchange hugs][Mousie, Stephen and Mia drive to Boston to pick up Dave] [J and I eat dinner at Applebee's].

Later on, the nine of us who were left hung out in Sam's room in the Comfort Inn and chatted while Ellmyruh tried to generate an aura of feminine mystique by creepily writing down everything in a spiral notebook. In the true American spirit, we then kidded Matthew relentlessly about British idioms for awhile. Jacqueline and I were pretty worn out after the day's travel and we were the first to leave, so we missed the awesome stunt where famous takes the bottle of complimentary hotel shampoo and snarks bubbles out her nose. Too bad; everyone agreed it was the coolest, grossest thing they'd ever seen. Ask her about it sometime!

Next: Long, awkward silences...