If there’s one thing I’d learned from movies, it’s that no matter how bad it got, you’d always know what to do in the end. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d get music or a long walk in the rain to figure it out, but I always figured that if I ever got into a bad spot, something deep inside me would tell me the best thing to do, and I’d be alright again.

I was trying to explain this to Catherine as I drove her all over town, stapling flyers to telephone poles.

“Did you mark this one too?” She asked me. She hadn’t been paying any attention at all as she grabbed the stapler and hopped out of the car, but I didn’t really mind.

“Yeah. But it’s not like anyone will see it there anyway,” I said back to her, shuffling through the maps of telephone poles in the area she’d found on some county website. I was in charge of following her directions to them and then putting a big fat, red X on all the ones we put fliers on. So we could take them down before Catherine’s parents got home, of course.

“Some might,” she protested, smacking the head of the stapler as hard as she could against the flier and the wood pole. Neither of us could hunt down a staple gun that morning. “Sometimes guys use this road for drag racing, since it’s so low traffic.” She cocked her head to the side, admiring her handy work. “And for its width, I guess,” she added, and slunk back into the passenger’s seat.

I snorted as I started the engine. “It’s not like drag racers read signs. There are too many trees and bushes and stuff around it anyway.”

Catherine shrugged. “Well, whatever. Where’d you put the maps?” And I shoved them into her hands as I pulled back onto the road.

So that’s how we spent our afternoon.

Here’s another thing I learned from movies: falling in love is stupid. It does funny things to you, and it’s supposed to be beautiful, but really you’re just crying over stupid things and giving up fun things. And I know that’s true because mom said she was in love when she got married, but now she can’t go out and do anything fun anymore. And dad said he was in love too, but mom bitches at him when he has friends over. So I’m not going to fall in love, ever.