- With a fresh break-up and a depressed mood in the bag, Colin figures he should get away. That's right folks—it's road trip time.
- The trouble is, Colin's parents aren't sold on the idea. His mom wants to know where they're going, how long it will be, why they want to go at all… you know, the usual questions parents have when you want to leave the house.
- Hassan points out that the road trip isn't about the where, it's about the experience. It's all about the journey, man.
- Fortunately, Colin's mom seems to get it, but then his dad's all not so fast, weren't you doing to learn Sanskrit this summer? Hmm… road trip or learning a new language. Tough decision.
- Colin doesn't want to sit at home and learn another language; he wants to go out and do something for once.
- His dad tells him he's not going to reach his potential going on a silly road trip, but Colin comes back with a boom: he's already wasted it.
- After Colin and Hassan leave, they have to go to Hassan's house to tell his parents, where they're met with some more friction about their trip.
- Colin sweetens the deal though, by telling Hassan's mom that they'll get jobs, which gets the boys the green light—Hassan needs to work hard and not sit around watching Judge Judy all day long, after all.
- And the boys are off.
- As Colin drives, his mind wanders. He thinks about how he's only ever dated Katherines—same name, same spelling—and how he's also only ever been dumped. Ouch.
- He comes up with an idea: there are dumpers and dumpees in the world, and you're either one or the other. All relationships end in (1) breakup, (2) divorce, or (3) death, which is a pretty unromantic way to think about things.
- Then Colin thinks way back to the time he met Katherine—not the one he just dated (K-19), but the very first Katherine.
- When Colin was a wee little two-year-old, he read the paper one day. His parents were shocked, as you are when your two-year-old kid reads the headline of the Chicago Tribune, so they took him to a psychologist to find out why their toddler could read.
- The psychologist tested Colin and determined he was a brilliant, amazing, rare child prodigy; his parents should be so proud… but they shouldn't expect him to become a Nobel-prize winning, butt-kicking adult or anything.
- While the grown-ups talked, Colin played with the blocks, making his very first anagram—rearranging the letters of one word (pots) to make another (stop). He liked this a lot and kept doing it (even into the present day).
- Colin's parents wanted to capitalize on the whole prodigy thing, so they gave him books to read. After he read The Missing Piece, he and his dad talked about what the book means, and his dad asked him if he was missing a piece, which Colin thought was a very silly question.
- It turns out being a know-it-all doesn't go over so well with the kids at school, and Colin is teased and pranked by his classmates all the time. His mom tells him they're jealous, but Colin knows better—they just don't like him.
- So it was a big surprise and relief when Colin got to third grade, and he and a pretty eight-year-old—Katherine 1—began dating. Phew.