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You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion of checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today@shopify.com winner.
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How do the most successful women do it? We asked them on how she does it with Karen Feinerman. You'll get insights from leaders like today's Jenna Bush Hager. There's a lot I say no to and I think it's a really important word for women to use. Rachel weber of Paris Hilton's 1111 media I'm going to be a much better leader. I'm going to bring more creativity if.
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I have other things filling my life and more.
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That's how she does it with me. Karen Feinerman, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hi friends, it's Will. Before we begin story time this week, I am going to take a moment of silence for Renee Good. I would like you to join me, but you don't have to. Thank you. May her memory be a blessing. Aesop of the Fables wrote that no act of kindness, however small, is wasted. If you've listened to me for any amount of time, you know how committed I am to choosing kindness, celebrating kindness, and encouraging kindness in others. Today's storytime is all about kindness with a capital K. And it's also about family with a capital F. Now to me, family with a capital F are the people who love you no matter what, to people who always show up for you without question or judgment. When you are with your family, you are safe. Family is usually siblings and parents. That is what it should be. But not all of us get that. And for us, family frequently is chosen and assembled from friends and co workers and some extended relations who are willing to do the hard work and enjoy the rewards of being a family. Now we're just a moment away from meeting Wade. Wade is a man who is a little lonely and a little lost. His cousin Kieffer, who is a bigger part of Wade's capital F family than I think Wade realizes, is pulling into his driveway. It seems that Kieffer knows that Wade needs family right now and he is here to be his family and drive him exactly where Wade needs to be. They will get there together in Kiefer's car, powered by a Brand new piece of technology called Wendwago Foreign. By Tim Pratt, Originally published in uncanny magazine, issue 66. My no account cousin Keefe, short for Kiefer, rolled up to the house that afternoon in a battered old mustard colored car of no discernible make or model. Keefe was in his 40s, about a dozen years younger than me, though they'd been harder years for him. I'd watched him drive a succession of $400 automobiles over the decades, but this one was just about the ugliest. When he slammed the door, I half expected it to fall off in a shower of rust, but it managed to maintain its integrity, which was more than I could say for Keef. Maybe that was a little unfair. My cousin got sober a while back, but it didn't really suit him and he walked down the dirt driveway like a man feeling his way carefully along a pitch dark street. I was sitting on a log by the dead fire pit along the side of the house, looking at the trees and thinking about my dog. Bella was a beautiful 6 year old blue tick hound and my one remaining joy and comfort. I adored that dog Keef. I could take or leave, so naturally my dog had run off three days ago while Keefe was right here. Probably come around to ask for money and I'd probably give him some because I'd always loved his mama, my aunt, rest her soul. Hey, Wade. Keith plopped down on the log beside me. He was wearing a neon green polo shirt over lime green cargo shorts and black work boots. He used to dress in camouflage all the time until a drunk hunter winged him with a deer rifle one time, and since then he'd tended toward a more high vis wardrobe. I grunted. He stared at the woods with me for a minute, then said, I saw on the Facebook how Bella run off. I drove around looking for her a little bit but didn't see her. I thought I'd come over, see how you were doing, so. He paused. How you doing? I was doing about the same, I said. Until Bella ran off after a rabbit and never came back. And since then I'm doing worse. With the kids all grown up and off in their lives. I was supposed to be enjoying early retirement. Put her in around in my workshop maybe, but mostly traveling around with my wife. That was the plan when I sold off my contracting company last year anyway, but it turned out Minnie liked me better when I was working 12 or 15 hours a day, so now she was doing the traveling on her own and posting lots of pictures to the Facebook about it and my workbench was covered in dust because I just couldn't be bothered. So far I'd spent my retirement drinking too much and spending time with my dog, but now my dog was gone and talking to Keith was a poor substitute. How about we go for a ride? He asked. We can look for Bella if you want. I spat, which always felt less satisfying since I'd stopped chewing tobacco even though I'd done that 20 years ago. Bell is probably off in the deep woods someplace. No roads Back there my property butted up against a couple hundred acres of gnarly old pines and briars and swampland that the county owned and didn't have much use for. It was quiet here apart from the occasional bang of a rifle in hunting season, but you got used to that. Come on anyhow, keith said. Let me buy you a beer. I'd never had Keef buy me a beer where I didn't end up buying him four or five in return. But he had quit drinking, or so the other cousin said. What are you gonna have while I'm having beer? I've been getting soda water with a splash of bitters mostly. You ever try that? Fancy as shit. I snorted and rose the mood I was in. I was such bad company for myself that even Keef seemed better. I walked around his car before I got in it, though. What the hell is this thing, Cuz? Started out as a Dodge Dart, mainly. He slapped his hand down on the roof, which seemed a poor idea given the vehicle's overall condition, but it didn't collapse. But there's a Chrysler logo on the steering wheel and the engine is some kind of custom job, and really it's all bits and pieces at this point, so who knows? The Ship of Theseus, I muttered. You're telling me this thing passed inspection? Well. He took off his gimme cap and ran a hand through his thinning hair before putting it back on. I might have had a buddy at the scrapyard who sold me a sticker. He peeled off a fresh wreck. Mostly I try to drive it where nobody will see me. Come on now. He climbed into the car and I opened the passenger door. It squealed and slid into the bucket seat, which was done up in buttery yellow leather. Way nicer than I'd expected. In fact, the interior as a whole was a lot less cracked and smeared and beat to hell than I would have imagined. It's nice on the inside, huh? Keefe grinned at me. I bought it off this old boy a couple counties over last week. He found it in his dead great granddaddy's garage and gave it to me for a few hundred cash. I don't think he ever even looked on the inside. And look at this. He tapped a rectangular contraption someone had epoxied onto the dash above the radio, complete with no shit and eight track player. It was about the size of a box of tissues made of midnight blue plastic with a tiny keyboard next to a screen, like you'd see on a graphing calculator, but bigger. The word or logo maybe wind way go was swirled and cursive underneath the screen, and a few finger thick cords ran from the top of the box into holes neatly bored into the dashboard, connected to who knows what in the car's frankensteined innards. It's a GPS system. This baby will take you anywhere. I turned my head and stared at my cousin Keith. First off, you don't have to say GPS system. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, so you got that part in there already. It's like say an ATM machine. Second, your phone has a gps. Everybody's phone does nowadays. I remembered those old dashboard GPS devices, of course, though they weren't usually this bulky or boxy. This was probably some kind of discontinued knockoff or technological. Also ran just Keef to get the Betamax gps. Keef didn't stop grinning though. This one's different though. Look it. You know how you were always talking about that time you went to Spain? I don't always talk about it. I'd gone one summer nearly 40 years ago, tagging along with a rich friend I met at community college after he got kicked out of Elon University for reasons never specified. But I was pretty sure Keef had never left the state or even been on an airplane. So to him it probably did sound like I talked about it all the time. Yeah, yeah, the Sagrada Familia, right? Most amazing thing you ever saw. Keef pushed a button on the GPS and the screen lit up with a pale pink glow. Definitely off brand. I was reading how they're finally finishing that cathedral only what, 150 years after they started? Want to see how it's coming along since you visited? What are you talking about? You want to take a boys trip to Barcelona? Well, I could travel and nothing was keeping me here except my dog. And after three days I was giving up hope on her, though it twisted me up to think it. I'd raised her from a pup. I wouldn't want to travel with Keith, though. He worked under the table jobs and didn't even pay income tax because he didn't want the government to have a file on him, so he wasn't about to get a passport. Best buckle up, he said. That was mildly surprising. Some of the cars Keith bought didn't even have seat belts, and he'd never been all that safety conscious before. But I did as he asked, and he buckled his shoulder and lap belt, too, before giving a satisfied nod. Look it, he said again, and punched a bunch of letters into that tiny keyboard, which had all 26 letters plus a bunch of symbols, some familiar, most not, each key about the size of a baby tooth. The words SAGRADA Familia dutifully appeared on the screen, and then the words START CAR flashed. Keith cranked up the engine, which hummed soft as an electric instead of belching and backfiring like his cars usually did. Shift to T. The screen flashed, and Keith put his hand on the knob of the big old gear shift lever between our seats. I noticed then that in addition to the usual reverse neutral and numbered gears, there was an extra slot marked with the letter T written sloppily with paint or maybe white out. I think the T stands for travel, keefe said, and slammed the gear into position. There was a sensation of rapid acceleration, pressing me hard back into the seat, and then the windshield streamed with an oil slick rainbow of colors, like someone had poured swirling dyes down the glass. Then, seconds later, I slammed forward against my safety belt. The colors drained away and I was looking at the vastness of the Sagrada Familia and Tony Gaudi's immense cathedral as work of art, with its Art Nouveau towers, its Gothic Revival silhouette, its walls and doors bristling with sculptural details and design elements. Bunches of fruit, the faces of saints, various animals that should have clashed but instead somehow melded. It was night in Barcelona, but the structure was lit by spotlights here and there. The last time I'd seen it, 40 years earlier, the structure had been covered in scaffolding and cranes, but now it was finished, or so close it might as well have been. The windshield is a screen, I said. This is some kind of video. But Keith just laughed and got out of the car. I got out too, legs shaken, gaze fixed on the cathedral. The church wasn't just visible through the windshield, it was really there. It'd be nice to see it in daylight. I always forget about the time zone thing. Keith walked around to sit on the hood of the car. It really is something, though. You weren't lying. His impossible car was parked in a spot near the park across from the cathedral and there were a few other people walking around pointing up at the structure, chatting in English and Spanish and Catalan. Nobody paid us any particular attention. I sat down heavily next to Keefe and stared at the church for a bit longer before looking at him. Keith, I said, what? And I cannot stress this enough in the actual Fuck. One of my favorite podcasts is called this Might Get Weird With Grace Helbrig and Mamrie Hart. I discovered that we share a sponsor. And I gotta tell you, I'm so excited because I'm such a fan of theirs that I just feel like this means that I get to sit at their table. I walk up to them and I go, yo, what's up Rocket Money? Am I right? Let me tell you about Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. It monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. How many of you are like me in a club you really don't want to be in? And that is a club that grants membership to those who sign up for a free trial, only to discover one year later that they've been paying every month for a thing that they do not use. Rocket Money will identify those things for you, help you cancel your subscriptions and save money. Rocket Money has saved users over two and a half billion dollars, including over $880 million in canceled subscriptions alone. Their 10 million members save up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Yo, I think we have a societal subscription problem, everyone. $880 million. Anyway, you can cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket money. Go to Rocketmoney.com storytime today. That's Rocketmoney.com storytime say it together everybody. Rocketmoney.com storytime that sounded great. When you're a kid, you just cannot wait to be an adult, right? When I'm an adult, nobody's gonna tell me what to do. I'm gonna be the boss of me. And that sounds great and it is. But a thing they don't tell you about being an adult is that every single night you have to make dinner. If you like me, really love to cook. But do not relish. It's a cooking pun. The experience of selecting ingredients. You're gonna wanna check out today's sponsor, HelloFresh. Hel. HelloFresh has about 100 recipes available to you every week. Ingredients matter and HelloFresh uses sustainably sourced seafood, antibiotic free chicken and produce that is in season so it actually tastes like produce. Then they are delivered. You get pre portioned ingredients step by step cards. Anybody else have a parent who was like hey what's for dinner? And they were like I don't know. Something with hamburger. Tonight I am making Peruvian style lomo Saltado. I use HelloFresh. This is a personal endorsement. I think you should use them. Go to hellofresh.com storytime10fm. You will get 10 free meals and a free zwilling knife that is a $144.99 value on your third box. Offer is valid while supplies last. Free meals are applied as a discount on the first box for new subscribers only and this varies by plan. Something I say at the end of every episode is thank you for spending time with me. I know that your time is limited. HelloFresh will help you get back some of your time. You kind of get your nights back and that's pretty great. Once again, that is hellofresh.com storytime10fm. I figured it out pretty quick after I got the car. He patted the hood affectionately. I was just playing around with the GPS thing and I put in my address and it said shift to T. I figured that gear was some kind of turbo boost bullshit, you know. But whoosh, it took me right back home the same way we got here. Then I played with the GPS again, put in Disneyland because it was the first thing I thought of and I ended up as close to the gates as you can get in a car. Almost always end up at a real good parking spot. I don't know how. He shrugged. Then I punched in Dollywood because I always meant to go. And there I was in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I got out the car and started jumping around all happy and I didn't even go inside the park. I went to Hollywood instead. And then I went to the Coliseum in Rome and hit that time zone problem because it was like the middle of the night there. So I went to Chicago to see Wrigley Field, even though there wasn't a game or anything, but at least it was daytime. I was gonna check out Buckingham palace, but the GPS flashed danger and whelmed and cooled down required. So I had to spend the night in Chicago. Slept in my car in a Walmart parking lot, but the seats are comfy. The next morning the GPS was working good again and now I know not to push it so hard. That was he squinted up at the sky. 3 days ago it's hard to keep track when you're in so many time zones. I'm in a few places, though. Waikiki beach, the Eiffel Tower, but I didn't think it was that good. Just looks like a big old oil derrick. The Statue of Liberty, but only for a minute before some cop or park ranger ran up and started screaming at me. I guess cars don't really go to the island the statue's on. Usually the car ends up in a legal space, but if there's no spots, I guess it just does its best. Anyway, I had to shift on back home real quick. That poor guy will still be wondering. I grabbed his arm and he looked at me, startled. We weren't much for touching on that side of the family. Keith, this thing, the things you could do. My brain was spinning with possibilities. He looked at me, face open and curious. Like what? I blinked. I don't know, man. Disaster relief, Rescuing refugees, transporting organs to surgeons in other countries. You can fucking teleport, cuz. Keith nodded, looking almost sage. I thought about that stuff too. See, if I did all that, people would notice, and then the black helicopters would come for me. The government would take the car and use it to Transport Seal Team 6 to assassinate the head of whatever country the president's mad at this week. They'd take apart the technology and figure out how to replicate it, and then it's all over. True global hegemony, you know? Plus they'd put me in a black site and torture me because they wouldn't believe I just found this thing. I opened my mouth to object and then closed it again. Keith was a paranoid conspiracy theorist, sure, but in this case I didn't think he was actually wrong. But I'm not going to use it to smuggle cocaine or anything either, Keith went on. I could use the car for good and that would end up being evil. Or I could use it for evil and then I'd be rich but also evil, and who needs that? Plus I'd probably just end up being tortured by a cartel instead of the army. A guy like me with something like this, I figure it's best not to get too ambitious or greedy. I wasn't going to tell anybody about the car. I was just going to see all the places I've always dreamed about seeing. But, well. He shrugged. You've been so sad, cuz since Minnie and all. I thought this might perk you up, take your mind off things. I barked a laugh, blowing apart my entire understanding of the nature of reality. Yeah, you're right. It did take my mind off things. I looked back at the church. I could clutch my head or howl at the moon or tell myself I was dreaming or any of that, but there was the Sagrada Familia right in front of me, absolutely real and almost as unlikely. My mama raised me to be a realist, and in this case that meant acknowledging the impossible thing happening to me was real. I wish you could see the inside, I said. I might be able to get us in there, but the car might mess up the pews or something. We can come back. Anything else you want to see? We can probably do three or four more trips before she needs to cool off. I'm here to cheer you up, Wade. I grinned at him. This was a miracle, and I decided to embrace it. Hell yeah, there is. How about Yosemite? I've never seen Half Dome. I don't even know what that is. That's why I like talking to you, cuz. Hop on in. You can punch in the next destination. So for the rest of the night we traveled. I figured Keefe would hit all the big, obvious tourist places himself, so I tried to come up with places he wouldn't necessarily think to go. After Half Dome, which was just as majestic as I'd always heard, I took us up to Norway above the Arctic Circle, and we looked out the windshield at the northern lights flickering and shimmering above a plain of white. The heater in the car kept us comfortable, and we sat there for a long while. Looks kind of like the colors on the windshield when we travel, keith murmured. He was right, and I tried to figure out if that meant anything about how the device worked solar particles, magnetic fields, before giving it up as beyond my current scope of understanding. From there we went to Egypt. Keith probably would have gotten around to the pyramids on his own, sure. But screw it, I wanted to see him, too. The car settled down in the sand with a view of several of the great tombs. Surreal and bizarre to think that human hands had made them, and without the benefit of engines. Keith probably thought aliens built them. I seemed to recall a drunken rant on the subject at a family reunion once. All this sand is making me thirsty, keith said after a while. I grinned. There's a place I always wanted to try.
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This episode is brought to you by ebay. On ebay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared. I read about this guy who bought a nearly scrapped 2020 Porsche Cayman. He rebuilt the whole thing, all with parts he found on ebay. And now that Cayman is out tearing up the track from Toyota to Ash and Martins, ebay has thousands of cars and the largest online selection of vehicle parts and accessories. Ebay Things People.
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It's not so hard to find parking in central London when you have magic or alien tech or whatever to take you there. We appeared in a spot right around the corner from the Savoy Hotel. Now the dress code at the American Bar is smart casual, but Keefe had a decent change of clothes in the back for going to court and such, and he wrestled himself into something approaching adequacy. We strolled into the bar about an hour before they closed for the night. Keefe was right. The time zones were a bitch. Some people say this is the best bar in the world, I told him when we walked in, and he let out an appreciative whistle. I'd seen pictures and the reality didn't disappoint. The gleaming curved bar, the elegant stools and tables, the ranks of shining bottles, the white jacketed staff. It all elevated the whole notion of a bar into a genuine cultural experience. Hemingway drank here, and Winston Churchill is where Neil Armstrong had his first drink after the moon landing. That's fake, keith said absently. But still, why is it called the American Bar? Back when it first opened more than a hundred years ago, they called it that because they served American style drinks. Cocktails, we call them nowadays. America invented those, keefe said, pleased. Greatest country on earth. I don't have any pounds or anything, though. Just a little regular muddy. My credit card will work here, I said. The government tracks you through those things, keith said. I've got a valid passport and I'm retired. There's nothing weird about me doing some traveling. The government won't notice. Come on, cuz. The bartender was a consummate professional and made me a beautiful Old Fashioned in a weighty crystal rocks glass that should have been on display in a museum. When Keefe asked for soda water with bitters, I winced. I'm sorry, cousin. In all the excitement I totally forgot you aren't drinking anymore. He turned in his stool and smiled. It's all right, Wade. To tell the truth, I always just liked hanging out in bars, and the drinking was mostly sort of a side effect. And it wasn't a good one. This is a nicer bar than I usually hit, though, that's for sure. We sat in companionable silence, taking in the ambience of the room. Or at least I assume that's what Keefe was doing. What I was doing was, well, brooding. It was the taste of the whiskey put me back in my funk. The last time I'd seen Bella, I'D been sitting out on the porch sipping a whiskey at dusk, and she ran off into the woods after that rabbit. Many used to say I loved Bella more than her, and while that wasn't true, there were times I sure liked Bella better. She was a hunting breed and she liked to roam, but she knew her way home and she'd never been gone more than a few hours before. I knew she was out there in the woods right now, lost, maybe hurt, maybe even run afoul of a bobcat or caught by a stray round from an off season illegal hunter. I could think of a thousand scenarios for why she hadn't come home. None were good. Keefe's miracle had distracted me, but that's all it was, a distraction. Soon enough I'd be back home alone instead of listening to Bella snoring on the rug at the foot of my bed or sitting with her head on my lap on the couch where she was allowed anytime she wanted. Now the Mini had moved out. Penny for your thoughts, cuz, keefe said. You all right? Just missing Bella. I grunted and Keith nodded and even patted my shoulder. He couldn't hold a job for more than a week or two at a stretch. He gave up on everything he'd ever tried the moment it got too difficult, and if he promised you he'd do something, you could just about guarantee that was the one thing he'd never get around to doing. But there was no meanness in him at all. He could have shown his car to anyone, but he showed it to me because he knew I was sad and wanted to cheer me up. You're a good cousin, Keefe. I was wondering if you'd ever notice, he said with that grin. Time, gentlemen, the bartender murmured, and so I settled up, tipping generously and not bothering to think about the exchange rate. No tourist had ever taken a cheaper trip to London, after all. We went back outside, me trying and failing to shake off my melancholy. Keefe was quiet, like he was lost in thought. We made it back to the car and got in, and after a moment of sitting silently I said, I reckon we should head home before we overwhelm your system here. Sure, keith said. Or, well, there was something I've been wondering about and sort of wanting to try. Now seems as good a time as any. He reached for the GPS and started typing. I watched, not even exactly curious, just feeling sort of hollowed out and wishing I'd had a couple more drinks. He typed in Wade's dog Bella, and a screen flashed Confirm non stationary destination Y N and Before I could say anything, he punched the letter Y, Shifting, the screen said, and the car started up and the gearshift moved without Keef even touching the ignition or the stick. The acceleration was tremendous this time I thought my spine was going to punch right out through my back, and there were dark streaks swirled in with the rainbows on the windshield, and they spread until the whole windshield was black, and I thought, Keith, you idiot, you killed us. But then the acceleration eased and we gently rolled to a stop, and I realized the black windshield was just a view of a forest at night. The wind wago emitted a harsh beep and the screen flashed the words WHELMED and Integral, Fault and MAINTENANCE required, and then gently sizzled a tendril of acrid smoke rising up from a new crack that appeared in the casing. Then the little screen went dark. Well, hell, keefe said after a moment. Lets see if it took us to Bella anyhow. He turned on the headlights, illuminating trees right in front of the beams. We weren't in a parking lot this time, but wedged into a space between mossy old trees barely big enough to fit the car. In fact, one of our fenders was pressed right up against a naughty trunk. I got out of the car, not expecting much, not daring to hope, and called, Bella. I heard a whimper and went stiff. You there, girl? There came a whine and a weak bark not far ahead. Keith went around to the trunk and came back with a flashlight, and we moved into the trees, shining the light around me, calling Bella's name and listening to her increasingly louder barks until we found her. She was at the bottom of a hole, her eyes gleaming up at me in the flashlight beam. A real big tree had fallen over, probably in one of last winter's windstorms, and uprooted itself, leaving a crater that had probably been made deeper from the erosion or rainfall. The steep, loose slopes were all scrabbled up from Bella's attempts to climb out. I started to rush down to her. Akee said, whoa. We don't want two of you stuck down there. Hold up. He returned to the car and came back with a lot of tangled old rope, and I wrapped some around my waist while he looped the other end around a tree. I went down into the hole and Bella jumped up on me and licked my face. When I picked her up, all 50 pounds of her, there was some water pooled down at the bottom of the hole and she must have been drinking that to survive, but she had to be starving. Keith pulled on the rope to help me up the slope as I struggled to the rim with Bella in my arms and then set her down gently on the ground and knelt beside her, ruffling her fur while she kissed my face. Laughing and crying, she licked the tears off my cheeks. Then I looked up at Keefe. Coz, thank you. And I'm so sorry I broke your miracle. He shrugged. Ah, well, what was I going to do with it? That was more important. I snorted. You could have, I don't know, used it to find Amelia Earhart or Bigfoot or a shipwreck full of gold. He flashed that grin. Amelia Earhart is probably dead. Bigfoot would kick my ass. And I don't believe even that car is capable of functioning as a submersible. He shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest, looked back at the car where the headlights were growing dim, like even the battery was giving up the ghost now that the wind wig o was busted. Besides, we're kin. I love you. I never had any really good thing in my life that lasted more than about a week anyhow. Usually I just fuck things up, but this time I did something good instead, and I saw more these past few days than I ever expected to in my whole life. I've been to Rome, Wade. I'm happy with that. If I'd pushed for more, I would have got eaten by a polar bear or kidnapped by government assassins or stranded on Mars or something. Anyhow, the headlights died completely, and he laughed. Might as well leave the car out here, huh? No way to get it out of the woods now, and if anyone finds it, hell, it's not registered in my name anyway. Never got around to it. I laughed and patted Bella on the head. Do you know the way home, girl? We couldn't be too terribly far from my house. I didn't think she did know the way, and she stuck close to us while she lit it. The flashlight kept us from stepping anywhere too swampy, though we both got plenty scratched up and muddy over the mile or two we walked. Me and Keefe both whooped once we hit my backyard. Bella ran circles around us, bounding around, her hunger and privation forgotten. I gave Keefe a ride back to his trailer with belly in the seat right beside me, and I actually hugged him goodbye. Then I went back home, gave Bella some food which she loved, and a bath which she hated, showered off the dust and grime of a couple continents and crashed into a deep and dream filled sleep, Bella snoring beside me, right up on the bed this time and probably forevermore, I imagine the next morning me and Bella took one of our walks in the woods and I tried to retrace our steps and find the car, but without much luck. It was dark the night before and there are enough animals in the woods that I ended up following some deer trail instead of ours. I'll keep looking though, even if it takes days or weeks. I'll find the wind wago and pry it off the dash and open it up and see what I can see. Integral fault and maintenance required. Doesn't mean the same thing is broken forever, now does it? Keith has his good qualities and I appreciate those more now than I ever did before, but he's always been a quitter and that's not me. I've got a whole workshop to tinker around in, after all, and everyone says the key to surviving retirement is to find some meaningful hobby to pass the time. Tim Pratt, Gender Fluid Any Pronouns is the Author of over 30 novels, most recently multiversal space opera the Knife and the Serpent. She's a Hugo winner and has been a finalist for Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon Stoker and other awards. She publishes a new story every month@patreon.com timpratt and posts incessantly her Word, Not Mine on bluesky@timpratt.org Massive. Thanks to her for trusting me with her words. We also have a Patreon where you can listen to this show without any ads. I also host monthly AMAs, share bloopers and other behind the scenes material and give you an inside look at how we make this show. I would love for you to join us@patreon.com storytime before I go, I keep forgetting to ask you to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. I am supposed to do that every week because it really does help the show grow so much more than any of us realize. I really want to make this show until I choose to retire and if I am going to do that, you are going to be a gigantic reason why. So thank you for trusting me with your time and your attention. I hope you enjoyed Wendwego. I had a really, really fun time reading it. It's the first time, I think in the history of the podcast I've read an entire story in a point of view character with a particular voice and speaking style for that character. So this was fun. I am outside of my comfort zone today, everyone, and it feels kind of good to expand it. If you are a Patreon subscriber, you will hear next in your feed this week's coda Reflections on Wendwago if you are not well, I don't know what you're listening to next, but I hope it's fun. Really appreciate you being here everyone. Until next time. I am Wil Wheaton. You can find me@willwheaton.net take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Welcome to the credits. Everyone. Settle in. It's just going to take a minute. I hope that you enjoyed Wendwego by Tim Pratt. It's Storytime was produced in 2026 by Traveler Enterprises Incorporated, who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our story producer and director is Gabrielle Dacure. Our content editor is Michael Thomas. Our podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by Alex Barton of Phase Shift av. Very special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. And thank you to Amy Berg who introduced me to Michael which made all the difference. We are recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley in Southern California. Thank you so very much for listening. That's all for now.