“Half-drunk on well-creamed gas station coffee and the exhilarating loneliness of a freeway in nighttime...”

“When Ben unfurls the T-shirts, there are two small problems. First, it turns out that a large T-shirt in a Georgia gas station is not the same size as a large T-shirt at, say, Old Navy. The gas station shirt is gigantic-more garbage bag than shirt. It is smaller than the graduation robes, but not by much. But this problem pales in comparison to the other problem, which is that both T-shirts are embossed with huge Confederate flags. Printed over the flag are the words HERITAGE NOT HATE."Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt.""I just grabbed the first shirts I saw, bro.""Don't bro me right now," Radar says, but he's shaking his head and laughing. I hand him his shirt and he wiggles into it while driving with his knees. "I hope I get pulled over," he says. "I'd like to see how the cop responds to a black man wearing a Confederate T-shirt over a black dress.”

“Yeah, so if that guy can make it in drunk, surely we can make it in sober. I mean, we’re ninjas.''Well, maybe you’re a ninja,' I said. 'You’re just a really loud, awkward ninja,' Margo said, 'but we are both ninjas.”

“If drunk were cookies, I'd be Famous Amos”

“We did not say: Don't drive. You're drunk.”

“Well later, I found out what it means. It's from and Aleut word, Alyeska. It' means 'That which the sea breaks against,' and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be. And it was damn far away from Vine Station, Alabama, just like I wanted to be.”

“I brought you a snack," Takumi said, dropping an oatmeal cream pie onto my book."Very nutritious," I smiled."You've got your oats. You've got your meal. You've got your cream. It's a fuckin' food pyramid.”