Got picked up by my buddy Inez (the professor who invited me to Buena Vista, pronounced "BYOO-nuh vista") in a rental car, because her car's window would no longer roll up, and it was below freezing. About midway between Correctionville (named because they do something with latitude lines and not because they have a lot of prisons or really enjoyed "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves") and Holstein (likely named for cow-related reasons), we went off the road into a ditch. Despite me not being the one driving, I was immediately blamed for this, as my time at Clarion West (where I met Inez) had given me a reputation as someone who should not ever be allowed to lead expeditions for fear of getting lost or losing the vehicle in some unlikely fashion.

Inez was really stressed about the whole ditch thing.

Inez: Oh my god! Oh my god! Are you okay?

Me: We weren't really going that fast.

Inez: We're in a ditch!

Me: Well, yeah, in Edmonton we call that a slow Thursday.

Some other guys had gone off the road as well. They came over to help us. I tried to push Inez's car forward to get it leveled out, until it was made clear to me that the level ground ahead was actually more ditch, and as I walked over to push it, I sank into the snow up to my knees. We failed to push the car back uphill. The guys drove off. I got back in and resolved not to mention the whole "sank into snow up to knees" thing to my wife, since I had politely nodded at her suggestion to bring heavy-duty shoes and just brought my sneakers instead.

Inez: Are your feet okay?

Me: Well, they're a bit cold.

Inez: Did you not get my e-mail, in which I said to wear heavy shoes?

Me: I wouldn't need heavy shoes except for us being in, you know, a ditch.

Inez called AAA, and after the forty-five minutes it took to spell her last name, we were told that someone would be coming from the nearby town of Correctionville to tow us out of the ditch. Said person called Inez's cell phone shortly and left a message, informing us that he "had to get dressed" but would be out shortly to winch us out.

Then we sat. We talked. People stopped to ask us if we needed help, which was charming at first and then annoying, because we had to get out of the car to let them know that we were okay, and eventually it became a "No, they're on your side" deal, and Patrick Weekes, respected academic speaker, kept sinking up to his damn knees in the damn snow.

Inez: Where the hell is Galen the AAA guy?

Me: Hey, come on. He had to get dressed. That probably means pulling on both loops of the big huge stereotypical set of overalls.

Inez: Are you hungry? 'Cause I have Doritos on the floor of the car.

Me: Wow. Sell it for me, Inez.

I texted our Clarion buddy Jenn, who was instantly helpful:

Me: Hey, we just drove off into a ditch.

Jenn: OMG! Did Inez let you drive?

Inez: Hah!

Me: Damn it, I was not driving!

Jenn: You were in the car, though.

Inez: It's your ambient field of getting lost and crashing. So, are you going to call Karin?

Me: Are you kidding? Call her and tell her that it's 9:45 and we're stuck in a ditch in the dark? She already stresses about me on trips. If I call her from this ditch, you're going to have to fake mariachi music so that it sounds realistic when I tell her that we've arrived safely and are now eating Mexican food.

Eventually, the AAA guy called.

Inez: Hello? You what? (to me) He says that he checked, but he was told we were "East of Correctionville", not "West of Holstein".

Me: Since we're between Correctionville and Holstein, there is actually a set of points for which both of those statements are true. Can you tell him that?

Inez: Okay, yes, we're on this highway. Well, right off it. In the ditch.

Me: Damn, I hope he didn't go him and get undressed again already. That'd be another 45 minutes.

I ate some of the Doritos. Actually, since I'd kind of spilled them all over the inside of her car, I ate the ones that were on the floor. They kind of gave me heartburn.

Finally, Galen the AAA guy showed up and began winching the car.

Me: Hey, Inez, you think maybe you should take it out of park?

Inez: Uh... should I?

Me: Yes.

(she does)

Galen (coming to the window): You don't have it in park, do you?

Me: What? Us? No. (points to gearshift) Please. That would be silly.

(he walks off)

Inez: Good call.

Me: Well, you know, I'm a man. The knowledge is mostly contained in the penis.

Inez: I'm surprised you didn't just get out there and use your dick to shove the car back out of the snow.

Me: Didn't want to damage your shocks.

As Galen the AAA guy was winching us out, some idiot on a cell phone missed not only Galen's blinking-lighted tow truck, but the car behind the tow truck, and proceeded to pitch off the road, three feet from us and significantly fewer feet from Galen, who promptly came over and began to yell at him with the very polite fury that only a midwesterner can unleash.

Galen: What the heck were you thinking? You darn near killed me!

Me: Whoah, Galen, man, slow down. There's no need for strong language.

Inez: Welcome to Iowa. Almost angry enough to swear.

Then, finally, we were free, and got to continue our drive after listening to Galen tear the driver a new one before pulling him out of the snow for free.

Inez: You're never coming back, are you? You're going to leave and never come back here.

Me: Why?

Inez: 'Cause I dumped you into a ditch!

Me: Hey, we had the Doritos.

Finally, at midnight, we rolled into Storm Lake.

Inez: So, here's the only place still open at midnight. What do you need? We have produce...

Me: Do you see my wife here with me right now?

Inez: No produce?

Me: Please. Okay, and aside from these (healthy foods that I got, which I won't mention because I don't want to bore my wife who is likely reading this), I need some toothpaste, some shaving cream, and some hand cream or petroleum jelly or something.

Inez: Wow.

Me: It's for my excema.

Inez: Whatever you say.

Me: I HAVE EXCEMA! (waves his dry hand) Okay, I can take the toothpaste back with me, but they don't have trial-size shaving cream. What shaving cream would you be willing to use after I left?

Inez: Skintimate? (points to light pink can)

Me: Oooh, look, it has Vitamin E, too.

Inez: You're really secure in your masculinity, huh?

Me: Plus, I have very well-moisturized hands. For my excema.

I checked in and got a good night's sleep. In the morning, I toured Inez's awesome campus and met all kinds of people, many of whom I will remember later. I listened in on a couple of her classes and had lunch with the writing group that Inez heads up. The writing group seemed distressed to learn that I considered there to be a point at which a work was "good enough to send out." I also explained my Rejection Letter Bingo game to them, which may hopefully encourage them to send stuff out.

Later in the afternoon, after doing some tests with the techs and then heading back to the hotel for a nap and some quality excema treatment, it was finally time for the presentation. I showed up and got ready, and all my fears of talking to an empty lecture hall were lain to waste when the place turned out to have standing room only.

I started out by introducing myself and telling a brief story about how I came to write the story I was going to read. (Those who know the sordid details do not need them explained again, and those who don't can ask me over e-mail. Short version: spite! Apparently it's what drives nine-tenths of my writing.)

The reading went... decently. Not fantastic -- college kids don't generally read for fun, so a short story involving jokes about large bookstores and popular titles wasn't really up their alley. I got some laughs, though, and doing the voices (the story was very dialog heavy) got me some audience love, I think. I hope. Anyway.

After the story, I answered a few questions, and when it became clear that nobody gave a rat's ass about the story, and they were all here for the video-gaming, I fired up the Grieving Husband plot from Mass Effect. I played through it once quickly for cinematic effect, taking the good path with the husband and intimidating the diplomat into releasing the body (check the link for a full playthrough, which explains the plot better than I can). Then I fired it up again and started to play it again, but this time I paused to explain what was going on, how individual lines were written, where we gave the player choice and where we guided the player, and so forth. I also let the audience choose the response. A very audible jerk contingent started up, yelling for Commander Shepard to be a dick whenever possible. A counter-jerk contingent popped up shortly thereafter, resulting in pitched battles throughout the audience.

People were prepared to yell at the diplomat, and just to shake things up, I asked if anyone agreed with the diplomat. This seemed to catch them by surprise, as I think a lot of them hadn't considered that this might be a real choice, but when I noted that the diplomat wasn't holding the soldier's body out of evilness, but because the military was trying to run tests that might save lives in the long run, hands started going up, and eventually the audience decided to side with the diplomat this time.

We went back to the husband and intimidated him into leaving by yelling about how people were dying, and how if he wanted to stop that, he shouldn't be so selfish. He broke down into tears, then told me to let them keep the body if it stopped more people from feeling the way he felt. Then he left... and the audience went, "Ohhhhh."

Which was awesome. Right there, some casual gamers stopped feeling like they were watching pixels on a screen and, for just a second, felt bad for yelling at a guy who was grieving for his dead wife. It was one of those character moments that made me love writing, watching a roomful of people feel guilty.

After that, I answered questions and talked about the business and art of writing. I talked about memory constraints (showing off the beauty of the Presidium and then explaining how that enormous space killed our memory, so we had to have a bunch of no-fight encounters to fill up the space with something to do), writing on demand (showing off the Evangelistic Jellyfish plot as an example of one that I didn't wake up in the morning really wanting to do, but that had to get done), and so forth. We were about half an hour over our time when Inez called it, and after most of the people left, a hardcore contingent was still there asking to see combat. I fired up a major level (which also included a romance culmination, just to give the kids a little something) and showed off what a high-level character could do. The combination of Lift and Throw for my point-after-kick effect got applause, and they loved watching my Sentinel character unload all his abilities (Sabotage Geth Armature's weapon, then Overload its shields, then order my buddy to hack a different Armature so that it would attack its now-helpless ally...) I ended the evening by showing the climax of the game -- the final conversation with your main enemy, and some cool things you can do in that conversation if you have the right level of Persuade. The kids didn't think that it was going to go there. It did. They were pleased.

The following morning, I got to take part in Inez's creative writing class. I answered some questions, and then Inez threw down the gauntlet and had me take part in a creativity exercise in which everyone got three famous character names and a picture, and had to write a story using that as inspiration. After receiving Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera, along with a picture of Tom Cruise holding an assault rifle while something blew up offscreen, I whipped up an action-movie cliche in which Mowgli and Baloo take down the sadistic Shere Khan, who is driving a bulldozer with Bagheera strapped to the shovel and attempting to mow down the jungle and sell it to make condos. The students seemed either impressed or terrified with my ability to produce cliched action movie crap on short notice.

Baloo: You're only getting one shot, cub!
Mowgli: That's all I'll need. (ch-chik!)

And then, finally, we were back on the road, this time free of ditch experiences. After a pair of flights that confirmed everything I'd always heard about United Airlines (late, rude, and incompetent all in one tidy package), I was back home.

My wife didn't believe me about the excema.