An Abundance of Katherines Chapter 5 Summary

  • Two hours later, Colin rattles off a bunch of facts about the World's Largest Wooden Crucifix. Hassan isn't interested, which he straight-up tells Colin.
  • Colin thinks about how Hassan's blunt honesty has actually helped him be a bit more, well, normal.
  • Hassan clues Colin in to the fact that a bunch of his factoids aren't particularly interesting to others, so now Colin knows to zip it when he's around other people. Sure, he might find the largest wooden church's location fascinating, but plenty of other folks do not.
  • Just then, the boys see a sign for the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the next exit. Hmm… that seems highly suspicious, particularly since they are in Tennessee and all. How could the guy that started WWI end up there?
  • Colin thinks it ridiculous, but Hassan figures the guy's gotta go somewhere.
  • They pull off the freeway and head over to check the grave out. Colin calls his mom and—no surprise here—wants to know if Katherine called… not surprisingly, she didn't.
  • The boys ask someone for directions to the gravesite, and a woman tells them it's in Gutshot, or "the sticks" as she calls it.
  • Unsure about whether they actually want to go to somewhere with the name Gutshot, the boys continue anyway. They're supposed to be on an adventure, after all.
  • When they get to Gutshot, they go to a local store and meet a girl reading Celebrity Living who Colin immediately passes off for an uninteresting dud because of her reading material.
  • Since she's the tour guide though, the guys have no choice but to keep talking to her; she introduces herself as Lindsey Lee Wells, and takes them out to an area with long grass (which Colin is allergic to).
  • While they're walking, Colin tells Hassan he should go to college, but Hassan won't hear of it.
  • Now is as good a time as any to anagram, so Colin does just that. He loves it, and gets so busy anagramming that he trips over a molehill right in front of him, falls, and hits his head on a rock.
  • There's blood, and a lot of it. Lindsey wants to stop Colin from bleeding so much, so she asks Hassan for his shirt to put on Colin's head. She's a paramedic, she tells them… Well, she's in training, but close enough.
  • Hassan refuses to give his shirt, so Lindsey uses hers on Colin's head and then runs back to the store to get some supplies.
  • While she's gone, Hassan apologizes to Colin for not giving up his shirt on a silver platter. He's really self-conscious about his man boobs, and Colin gets it.
  • Hassan helps Colin find his glasses, and he says eureka.
  • Colin's mind wanders again, this time back to K-19 dumping him, almost a year into their relationship.
  • It was the day of their graduation, and they went out to sushi to celebrate; they argued about where to park. Colin got all moody about graduating and no longer being a prodigy, but Katherine thought he was overreacting. Sigh.
  • Then Colin asked Katherine if she still loved him. She hated when he asked, but he couldn't help himself. She said she did—phew—but it's the last time she ever said those three little words to him.
  • Katherine quickly changed the subject and asked if sushi could be anagrammed. It sure can: uh, sis. They laughed and played a game they invented called "imagine a situation" that goes like this: Colin anagrams a word, and then Katherine comes up with a situation where that anagram and the original word could be used together.
  • They laughed and Colin thought about how much he loved her.
  • Cut to later that night when she breaks his heart. She's sick of him always talking about being a prodigy and feeling pressured to act like one. Live a little.
  • After she leaves, Colin tries to anagram my missing piece and can't. Aw.