My family and I were sitting in a small living room, watching Thursday night TV. I recognized the room as home, though I wasn't comfortable there. It looked more like a hotel suite, and I was wary of touching anything for fear or messing up the regal look of the room.
ABC had felt the ratings pressure from the NBC Must-See TV lineup, so it had created a new show that was getting some serious buzz: A Man and His Dog. It was about a dog named Mr. Werkles that looked suspiciously like the Pets.Com sock puppet. I thought it was cute, but my parents and sister were less amused. It was supposed to be on at 9 PM each Thursday, but when my mom changed the channel to NBC, Just Shoot Me was on. Something was terribly wrong! If it was actually the nine PM to nine-thirty time slot, then Will and Grace should have been on. My head was spinning with the confusion of it all.
I began to notice certain things about the room that reminded me of home. The couch had similar colors to my parents' old couch in suburban Atlanta, and the carpet was the same rust color as that of my customary home. However, I could tell even before looking out the window that we were in some sort of high-rise condo complex. I asked my dad why we never went to our other home anymore.
He said, "Well, we just like this one a lot better. Don't you?"
Very messy transition. I suddenly was at the customary home, walking downstairs, where I found my mom cleaning up the garage. I also discovered that I wasn't wearing any clothes. My mom looked at me with both concern and curiosity.
"Have you developed properly?" she asked me.
I wasn't sure what she meant. Then she approached me with a piece of dental floss and stuck it between my legs. "Ow," I said.
My mom asked me if I needed some tips to improve my sex life. I didn't respond. She led me into the darkened basement. I wasn't sure what she was going to do, but this looked as though it would shape into some serious family issues. She mentioned something about bringing my dad in on this too, so that he could help out. I sat down on the white couch that sat in the basement for years but is now in the living room in my loft at school.
I thought my mom had left to go retrieve my dad, but the next person to enter the basement was Adam. He said we should definitely have sex on the couch, since no one else was around. I was afraid it would creak. We agreed that he would give me oral sex and I would give him a handjob. The couch folded out into a bed, but we only unfolded it halfway. I was worried that I didn't fulfill my half of the bargain, because he ejaculated only water. I kept thinking, "This must be what it's like to hold a fire hose."
Then I was wearing clothes again, and was upstairs in the kitchen, where I saw the microwave clock reading 12:51 PM. My dad was already eating lunch, something from the "New Tastes" menu at McDonald's. It was called a Birdburger. The hamburger patty had been molded into the shape of an animal -- in his case, a llama. The head and tail part of the llama greasily protruded from the bun. I turned away to get myself a drink. On the counter was a large vase of flowers and a bunch of new drinking glasses with flowers printed on them.
"What are these for?" I asked.
"It's your mom's birthday," my dad said. "Didn't you remember?"
I hadn't, and I couldn't believe that I hadn't. I knew that if this was really her birthday, I would have had some inkling of recollection in the days preceding it. June fifth, I finally remembered. Her birthday is June fifth.
"Today's March eighth," I said. "Her birthday's June fifth."
My dad shrugged. I looked up and saw there were balloons filling the room, tied to everything. I hadn't noticed these before, either.
