Milo is a boy who does not know what to do with himself. He is bored senseless by practically everything in his life and is constantly trying to find something exciting or interesting. Milo especially dislikes his schoolwork because he cannot understand the use behind learning geography or math and thinks that learning is "the greatest waste of time of all."
One day, Milo goes into his bedroom to find a strange package waiting for him. The box is not quite square but not quite round and is addressed to "MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME." There is no return address on the package, and Milo has no idea who might have sent it to him—it is not his birthday or Christmas. Deciding that there is no way he can return the box, he opens it. Inside he finds an unassembled turnpike tollbooth, a map, a book of traffic rules, and an instruction manual. He puts the tollbooth together and gets into a small electric car, one of the many toys he is usually too bored to play with. As he approaches the tollbooth he is told to have his destination in mind, so he randomly picks the city of Dictionopolis from the map and passes through the turnstile
