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“Because if you do,” said Carson, “an alarm will be triggered, and the base police will come and shoot you.”

“Oh. All right.”

I stepped well clear of the mortal line, which upon closer inspection was accompanied by a legend saying something about “authorized deadly force.” Yes, it would have been helpful to see that earlier. Never had text been so vital to my well-being. Though I had broken many rules so far on the trip, I preferred to do so when the consequences were a little less severe—say, involving an angry shopkeeper instead of a squad with M16s.

Way back in January, Josh had suggested a daring revision to our West Coast schedule: that we forge a path past Seattle and land in Vancouver for an evening, before doubling back to meet Jane’s arrival at Sea-Tac. So now we pushed on past Seattle and across the Canadian border, keen to spice up the Typo Hunt Across America with a dash of foreign savor.

At the crossing, a gruff customs officer interrogated us about our purposes for visiting, trying to get us to admit that we were pot-heads who intended to harass the honest Canadian populace with our grubby mid-continental ways. We elected not to mention the true purpose of our visit, since it did, technically, include at least a minimum of harassment. Annoyance and discomfort had revealed themselves, I thought, as the golden core of TEAL.

Using the interwebbing skills for which he is renowned, Josh landed us semi-swanky accommodations in downtown Vancouver for a decent price. My initial impression was that the city did not diverge in any noticeable fashion from many of the American cities that I’d already seen. But for the chill in the air, and the vaguely British twist to the spelling on signs, Vancouver could have been San Diego or Atlanta. The following day, we’d take a stroll in the giant park capping the north side, and that generous amount of wildness would lend some character to the city, but this evening’s perambulation along lively Robson Street gave a familiar impression. Our search yielded pretty much the same types of errors we’d been finding stateside (mostly missing letters and punctuation). Our correction rate remained low to nonexistent. We wished to be on our best behavior in a foreign land, and unfortunately most of the typos could not be fixed without risking an international incident.

Then we stopped.

LONLEY? asked the chalkboard. YOU GOT A FRIEND IN BOOZE.

Josh was the one who’d pointed out the sign. We peered at the specimen, and I felt a thin rivulet of confidence feed into my heart’s murky pool. I had done plenty of chalkboards on this trip. We could fell this typo for sure. There was an apostrophe mistake on the other side, too. Josh gave me a determined nod. I smiled. After all we’d been through, I could count on him as a hardened veteran of the League. He said, “Nobody’s looking right now. Let’s just do it—give me half of that chalk, and I’ll do one side and you do the other.”

“Sure,” I said. “You get the apostrophe one, and I’ll do lonley.”

“What?”

“Lonley,” I repeated, confused now. “The typo you so astutely pointed out on this side of the board.”

Josh peered at the chalkboard. “Oh yeah, that’s a good one!”

“Uh … what were you looking at, if not that?”

He indicated the next line down. “See, there. You got a friend. Should be You’ve got a friend.”

“That’s not a typo. They’re trying to be slangy.”

“It’s not right, though.”

“It’s a style thing. You have to allow room for self-expression.”

Josh shrugged. “All right, let’s do our corrections.”

He went around and added the apostrophe needed on the other side. As carefully as I could, I converted the e to an l and vice versa in LONLEY on my side. When Josh came back, he decided to add his own correction below that, regardless of what I thought. Thus, to my dismay, a ’VE appeared, like a dark djinn summoned to fulfill the wishes of the black-hearted.

“Dammit, Josh!” I said. “That wasn’t a typo. For real. Take that out.” He refused. And then it was clear