“Ana!” said Erica. “You have to help us! Aaron is doing this incredibly annoying thing where he says that everything in American Pie is about the Christian version of Biblical history, and he says that the fallout shelter is Noah’s Ark and the pink carnation is the Incarnation and the Chevy at the levee is the tribe of Levi, and the Rolling Stones are the stone rolled away from Jesus tomb, and we keep telling him it’s about rock and roll and he won’t listen and you’re the only one who can ever make him see reason!”

“Erica,” said Ana calmly, “you’re going about this the wrong way. When Aaron is like this, you can’t argue against him. You have to beat him at his own game.”

“What?”

“For example,” said Ana, “Aaron, I propose that the Chevy does not represent the Tribe of Levi, but rather the Tribe of Issachar.”

“Huh?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because,” she said, with an ethereally beautiful smile, “a Chevy is a car.”