Day thirteen. (95sep07) We leave Best Western with our WORST check-out time the entire trip, I would guess: 10:50am. Oof. The latest thing in corn borer insecticides -- billboard Our drivers and owners/operators are people -- truck sign Scott spots the National Pork Producers Council Headquarters. Yeah, yeah, other white meat, yappity yappity. Are we home yet? Enjoy BEEF often -- billboard We've completely bottomed out of our rigorous "healthy" food agenda. Tasty snax for lunch. Pop Tarts and potato chips while driving. The bag of chips is sitting on my lap, and I have to suffer the indignity of breathing BBQ potato chip fumes [.03 SLI]. Jeff: "Wouldn't it be cool if someone had some kind of rare, incurable disease because of which they had to breathe the fumes from a bag of BBQ potato chips all day? They'd have a little oxygen mask, and strapped on their belt...some Lay's." Scott: "It'd make a good story." THE STORY OF THE MAN WHO HAD SOME KIND OF RARE, INCURABLE DISEASE BECAUSE OF WHICH HE HAD TO BREATHE THE FUMES FROM A BAG OF BBQ POTATO CHIPS ALL DAY Man (breathing, addressing no one): "I have a rare, incurable disease heeeeeeeeep ... because of which I have to heeeeeeeeeep ... breathe the fumes from a bag of a heeeeeeeeep BBQ potato chips all day." Son (entering room): "You gonna eat these, pop?" [a MEDICAL EMERGENCY ensues] Paramedic (entering room): "They were out of BBQ, so I got sour cream and onion. Is that okay?" [Man collapses. Son finishes BBQ chips.] Paramedic (eating sour cream chips): "Damn. I didn't even get to say 'stat'." [Curtain.] You got your tragedy in my comedy! Well, you got your comedy in my tragedy! Hey...they're doggone good! I'm thinking of flushing it out to three acts. Iowa and Michigan share at least one fascinating trait: banal solid blue license plates. Iowa and New York share a city. Scott pulls into Brooklyn, Iowa, to mail post cards and get gas. Brooklyn's a small railroad town, but a hell of a lot healthier than Vivian. The kind of town in which the post office closes for lunch. Gas costs $1.19 right off the freeway, $1.06 two miles into town. I see yet another newspaper yapping about something involving the quantity 2131. "What's this 2131 nonsense about?" "Cal Ripkin Jr. has been in 2131 consecutive games, more than Lou Gehrig." "So everyone is going apeshit over some guy's good attendance record? Baseball is getting desperate." What Cheer -- an actual town in Iowa ILLINOIS "and Chicago, and Chicago, and" 3:47pm CST Illinois has riverboat gambling. Scott's not going for it. We're listening to USA Radio News or some such thing. Nato pilots have flown more than 2000 missions over Bosnia, BEATING Cal Ripkin's record. More importantly, Senor Grope is packin' it in. "...and I leave this institution not with malice...but with love." -- "Senator" Packwood Yup, we've read all about your kind of love, pal. This sort of behavior will not be tolerated by the American people, when they're lucky enough to find out about it. Everyone else, continue dallying! A stop at a toll plaza requires extensive candy cane maintenance. The thing is warped all to hell from the wind. We pound it down, get back in the SUV, and make Chicago at 6:40pm. "Hey, let's take the Detroit-Racine ferry!" The cityscape is mesmerizing; just four days ago we were looking at vast mountain ranges. There's massive breaking waves on Lake Michigan. We're staying the night at Drew's, a college friend of Scott's. Drew is a witty, brilliant conversationalist. Whenever he starts a sentence with "I have a theory...," just sit back and enjoy the show. Tonight's theory involves the psychosexual implications of neckties on the self-esteem of corporate employees. Somehow, it all makes perfect sense. We go out for deep-dish pizza at Leona's. Scott almost ended up working in Chicago at Abbott Labs, but that's neither here nor there.

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