Victory! So far at least.

We are in the car and on our way to meet Lucy the Skateboarding Cocker Spaniel. Tomorrow Lucy will make history as she rides through the legs of thirty-plus people and breaks the current record of longest human tunnel traveled through by a dog skateboarder.

We left our house early this morning. By this time tomorrow, we should be record breakers.

“What do you think it takes to teach a dog to skateboard?” Dad asks as we cross the Texas-Oklahoma state line.

“A dog, for one,” I say.

“Do you think any dog would work?” Mom asks.

“Well,” Dad says, “it’s got to be small enough to go through people’s legs but have a big enough brain to learn how to skateboard.”

“Good point,” Mom says. “How long do you think it takes for a human to learn to ride a skateboard? Probably would take a dog at least twice that.”

“Depends on the human,” Dad says.

I lean forward. “I say this conversation is pointless unless we have a dog.”

Dad glances in the rearview mirror and changes lanes. “Maybe we should get a dog and train it. We could find out that way.”

“How about as soon as we win this record, you can ask Lucy’s owner,” I say. “Then we don’t have to guess?”

“Good point. I think I will.”

My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Jesse. He’s bummed we are going to a record attempt instead of his cross-country meet. I reply that it came up super last minute and that I can’t talk.

When we get to St. Louis, it’s just getting dark. We go straight to the hotel and get pizza delivered for dinner. After we eat, it’s time for bed. One more wake up and everything will be fixed.

Mom and Dad doze off quickly. At midnight, I’m still wide awake.

To fall asleep, I count. But instead of fence-jumping sheep, I list off our past record attempts in my head.

After tomorrow, I bet I won’t think of all these failures again.

After tomorrow, the past attempts won’t even matter.