WHEN IT'S 80 degrees outside, ants in the pants get itchy. I could kennel my goldfish and drive to Tijuana to buy an armadillo purse. I could hike into the woods with two whining friends to videotape a scary bundle of twigs. I could go to Priceline.com and put in a $4 bid on a ticket to a war-torn country where I could roll bandages for orphans. Or I could take the ferry to Bremerton and have a beer.

"You could get there tonight, but not back," says the nice, bored lady in the box at the ferry terminal. For a moment, I imagine drinking in a Bremerton bar and then sleeping in my car. Maybe if I had someone with a nice, shaggy mullet to lay on top of me for warmth? Next option. "You could go to Bainbridge Island," she says. "There's all sorts of cute shops, I hear." What the hell. It's better than driving to Tacoma.

I pull onto the ferry named, ominously, the Tacoma, remembering to engage the emergency brake so my car doesn't roll into the sea, then head to the "sun deck." The sun's already dropped and the sky is the color of a two-day-old bruise. The entire boat is shuddering, trembling as it cuts open the black water. Standing in the cold wind, I shudder and tremble along with it.

"Goodbye, Nee-Nee!" says a tiny child, waving over the railing as the city's vulgar glitter shrinks away. Who is Nee-Nee? "He's saying goodbye to the Space Needle," his mother admits with a laugh. I wave too. Goodbye friends. Goodbye home. I'm never returning. I'll make a new life mending nets and snarling at the summer people. But first--that beer! I vow to drive around Bainbridge Island until a neon tractor beam locks onto my vehicle and draws me in.

Half an hour later, I am hopelessly lost. There are no streetlights, and some of the roads end abruptly without warning. Three times I've had to hit my brakes for spindly-legged deer who tiptoe across the pavement in their high-heeled hooves to peer into my car with glowing eyes. Somehow these weird, wild mammals hypnotize me into feeling guilty for not carrying a salt lick in the glove compartment.

When I roll to a stop, the night chorus of frogs and bugs and God knows what else raise a racket in the trees and tall grass. They sing, "Quickly, come and find me and we'll fall in love! For I have only this night to live!" I roll up my windows and drive on.

"Where is the damn bar?" I wonder. Where are these so-called "shops"? At this stage in my mini-vacation, I'd be gratified to find a storefront selling windsocks and cat-shaped door jambs. What kind of charming faux rustic village is this, anyway? Even dumbass "Colonial Williamsburg," where I was dragged twice a year throughout the course of my childhood, had a "Ye Olde Ale Haus" where, if my memory serves me correctly, my mother would always find my father in hiding, nursing a Yuengling and throwing funnel cake at the ducks.

After a long drive in circles, I am ridiculously relieved to see the pink lights of the ferry dock guiding me back. I pull up to a different bored lady sitting in a box. "Can you tell me where to get a beer?" "The only thing open after 10:00 is the Suqamish Casino," she says. "You gotta drive off the island, though."

The casino looks like a collision be-tween a double-wide trailer and a circus tent. "The tent leaks and sometimes we make people hold up cups to catch the water while they're gambling," the bartender confides to me while I sip at one of the two Coronas I feel I've earned. Unsurprisingly, there is no one at the "Information and Redemption" booth, so I take a walk to find answers alone.

Mabel and Diane are drunk. They are also mother and daughter, fishing clumsily in their purses for Ultra Slims and Marlboro Reds, respectively. "We just lost Dad and now we come out here to gamble," Diane says. Her mother leans toward me. "We never, ever win." Then she throws back her head and laughs hoarsely until a cough cuts it off. I ask them what they would do if they were to win big. "I want my mother to pet a goddamned koala," Diane states. Her mother looks at her as if she has lost her marbles. "Why do I need to pet a damn koala? I've seen pictures. That's plenty, thank you very much."

I lean against the casino's security booth and chat with a hunky guard about half my age. "I'm only doing this to get money to go back to school," he says. "Oh," I say seductively, "what would you like to study?" "Security," he answers. He goes on to inform me that nearly all the patrons are island people, who sneak out of their quaint bungalows when the sun goes down to cross the bridge in pursuit of cigarettes, roulette, and booze.

Bridge! Island! Damn it, I'm going to miss my ferry and be trapped forever in a town so uptight they've compartmentalized all their vices into one convenient location. I jog out of the casino and make the Tacoma just in time. A man in an orange vest carefully directs me far away from the exit. "The lady behind you needs to pull out first. She's having a baby," he says. See! Even the unborn are in a hurry to get the hell off this self-righteous rock!