Props to John Offutt, the real estate agent who helped us buy a house and made me miss the last ten minutes of this stupid episode when it first aired. Whee!

Previously on Dawson's Crap -- I mean, "Creek": Pacey warned Dawson that Joey wouldn't stay off the dating market forever; Pacey planted one on Joey, and she freaked out; she pretended that it meant nothing to her, and he pretended to go along with her; Dawson told Pacey that whatever else he might doubt, he'd never doubt Pacey's friendship, and Pacey felt like a big old heel.

Dawson "Dome-an Polanski" Leery and Joey "Snore-gia O'Keeffe" are strolling along a pier. Dawson invites her to "look at what [they've] become." Joey, I advise you not to; I'm looking at what you've become, and I just don't know how much longer I can hack it. Anyway, she asks him to explain himself, and he observes that most teenagers their age spend spring break getting drunk and engaging in ill-advised hook-ups in Florida (when they're in high school? Uh, okay), whereas the two of them will be spending it visiting his aunt, which he pronounces "ahnt" instead of "ant." There has been some discussion of this on the forums; some folks are saying Dawson's pronouncing it in a pretentious way while others are saying "ahnt" is proper. I would venture that pronunciation varies regionally; I'm from Saskatchewan and I've always said it "ant," but when I moved to Ontario everyone I knew said "ahnt." Then again, they also said "newFOUNDlind" instead of "NEWfin-land," so what the hell do they know? And who really cares? Yes. Exactly. Speaking of "who cares," Joey says that visiting Dawson's aunt is a ritual -- their ritual -- and that she loves the ritual and loves "Aunt Gwen." "And she loves you," Dawson assures her, causing Joey to smile delightedly, and to add rather expositorily that she can't believe Aunt Gwen is selling her house; Dawson can't either, and comments that it's like "the end of an era." Oh God, not more nostalgia from Generation I (as in "I really don't think you've lived long enough to have become so freaking jaded, Idiot"). Joey asks Dawson if he supposes they'll be able to "rope Jack and Andie into one of [their] famous late-night karaoke sessions." Dawson admonishes her that they had agreed to pretend the karaoke thing never happened. Joey fondly scolds him for being "ashamed of his roots." At this point, the person who should be most ashamed of Dawson's roots is the production hairstylist. As my esteemed colleague Sars has already remarked, it's so over-processed at this point that it looks like hay. And before we leave behind the subject of karaoke, I would like to remind everyone of my remarks of March, 1999, in my recap of "Be Careful What You Wish For," in which Andie and Dawson got up on stage at the Contrivance Club and "sang" the "blues": "...if Dawson ever sings again, I will kill myself." Let's hope I can get through this episode without making the ultimate sacrifice.