- Over at Starnes's place (which doesn't have air-conditioning, mind you), the interview is underway. Colin gets bored listening to Starnes's stories about when he came to Gutshot and when he started at the factory, though it turns out Starnes worked at the factory longer than anybody—sixty years to be exact. They even named the break room after him.
- Starnes has nothing but nice things to say about Lindsey's family. Her great-grandpa, Dr. Dinzanfar, and his son-in-law Corville Wells were always fair to him. The only one Starnes doesn't like is Lindsey's dad, Alex, who we gather is out of the picture now.
- Starnes also tells them about the time he was arrested for shooting his neighbor's pet snake. He didn't know it was her pet; he went into her house and there the snake was, so he shot it. Too bad people don't like when you shoot their pets, so he spent two nights in jail for that.
- Then in 1944, he married a good lady named Mary (she died of a heart attack in 1997).
- Starnes didn't want to go to war, so he shot himself in the foot. He tried to make it look like an accident, but everyone knew and thought he was a coward; Starnes points out that everyone is a coward, though.
- Colin notices that Lindsey uses a thick accent when around Starnes, and he wonders why that is.
- The trio leave Starnes's house and Lindsey wants to be dropped off at the store so she can hang out with TOC.
- The boys are hot and sweaty, and wish they could go in the air-conditioning. Lindsey jokes about Colin's smarty-pants thing being unbearable and he gets majorly touchy—Hassan tells Lindsey that's because Katherine called him unbearable and it reminds him of her.
- Dingleberries, Colin chimes in. And that settles it.
- They drop Lindsey off, but after a while they get bored of killing time so they head on back to the general store. Lindsey's there, sitting on TOC's lap, and he takes the opportunity to warn Colin and Hassan to steer clear of Lindsey… or else. And then, just in case they didn't follow, he spells it out for them: he'll kill them if they touch Lindsey. What a charmer.
- Hassan and Colin leave, and Hassan points out that Lindsey is bubbly around TOC but she's more one of the guys with them. Hmm… is anyone else noticing a trend?
- While they wait, Hassan and Colin talk over Lindsey and Katherine. Hassan doesn't go for girls with big noses, and he can't date Katherine because of his religion, so she's out. Colin wants to call Katherine, but Hassan thinks that's just about the worst idea he's ever heard (Shmoop agrees).
- Then the boys decide that Hassan will fake an asthma attack so they can go back to the pink mansion and relax.
- When Hassan goes around wheezing, Lindsey comes over to help, but doesn't like the idea of going home—Hollis freaks out when people interrupt her workday.
- Sure enough, when they get home, Hollis is on the phone, talking about how her product is American and people want that.
- She gets ticked when they come in the house, but then mellows out when she sees Hassan is having an asthma attack.
- They eat dinner and Colin calls his parents to fill them in on where he is and what he's doing. They're not so thrilled with the idea of him staying with strangers, but he tells them he's totally fine; his mom asks him if he's happy, and he claims he's happier here at least.
- Later that night, Colin overhears Hassan and Lindsey talking about him. She wants to know how he knows so much, so Hassan fills her in: when Colin reads something, he finds everything interesting—not just the stuff normal peeps might think more about—and he attacks learning differently from everyone else.
- For instance, when Colin wanted to learn typing, he didn't take a typing course like a normal person might—nope, he went and retyped all of Shakespeare's plays. And then Catcher in the Rye to boot. Talk about overkill.
- Colin isn't sure how he feels about the two of them talking about him; while what Hassan says is true, he doesn't understand why they're talking about it.
- Then Colin talks to Lindsey for a while. He tells her about his theorem, but she doesn't think geometry can predict relationships—to her, it's real life, not math.
- Again, Colin muses over the Katherines and thinks about the fact that he keeps repeating the same cycle over and over by falling in love with Katherines.
- It occurs to him that no one likes dumpees. It's so boring and annoying talking about how you're not cool enough to keep a girlfriend, so no one wants to hear it.