An Abundance of Katherines Chapter 4 Summary

  • Back to the future, as Colin and Hassan pull up to Paducha, Kentucky. Hassan has bad breath and wants some toothpaste, but instead, Colin wants to teach Hassan about the proper term for bad breath (which is fetor hepaticus we'll have you know).
  • Hassan tells Colin to cool it, though, that proper terms aren't so interesting and he doesn't really want to hear about it.
  • It might seem mean, but Colin thinks back to when he and Hassan first met, and we understand why the two are friends a little bit more.
  • It was in a tenth grade calculus class, and Hassan had just started school after being home-schooled; for his part, Colin didn't make friends with anyone other than Katherines.
  • One day in class, Colin asked the teacher if he could go to the bathroom because he had an eyelash in his pupillary sphincter. We should tell you that the pupillary sphincter is in the eye, but of course the class thought this was hilarious (so much so, that they wrote it in his yearbook when he graduated from high school).
  • Hassan came up to Colin afterwards and gave him a little talk, letting him know that so long as he said things like pupillary sphincter in class, kids were gonna think he was weird.
  • And that's how Hassan and Colin became friends.
  • Back in Kentucky, the pair talk about how they don't really like it there. Colin's mind goes back to Katherine again and again, and he thinks about how he used to talk about using his Kranial Kidz money to take Katherine to Paris. (For the record, Shmoop has no clue what this Kranial Kidz business is.)
  • They keep driving, and Hassan wants to stop to see the World's Largest Wooden Crucifix but Colin says it reminds him too much of Katherine. This surprises Hassan, since Katherine wasn't religious.
  • It's clear that everything reminds Colin of Katherine, so they keep driving.