Letters to Our Younger Selves: Dear Pam

Dear Pam,

Here's the thing: You're going to drive a borrowed car into a ditch in a cornfield outside Altamira, Spain.

You are not going to get hurt, though you are going to feel like an idiot when you realize what you have done. You will have to go get help, which means you'll walk into a tiny country bar where there are two big farmers in blue overalls having an afternoon break. You are going to explain to them, in your halting Spanish, that you can't get your car out of a ditch in a nearby cornfield and ask them if they could come give you a hand. You just need a little . . . push.