Day two of the camping trip: the tent leaks, the cooler floats, and the campground toilet has no door. Everyone else packs up for a motel. One person sleeps nine hours on a wet pad and wakes up asking who made coffee. The same shrug comes out at the DMV with forty people ahead, in a middle seat on a red-eye, and in the in-laws' guest room with no AC in August. Nobody hears a complaint. A military toughness shirt for the veteran who grades every bad day on a curve set in a place hotter, dustier and a lot further from a shower.

THE DEBRIEF

A fighting knife stands point up: a long blade with a fuller groove, a straight crossguard, a ringed grip and a pommel with a lanyard hole. I’VE BEEN TO runs beside the blade, WORSE PLACES beside the handle, in heavy stencil capitals. A thin rule level with the guard splits the two. One light gray ink, speckled with wear.