The Dream World

I go into the bathroom and my two little brothers are playing in the bathtub with their flip flops on.  I yell, "Mo om, the boys are playing in the bathtub!"

Mom comes in and sees them holding our baby sister by the feet as she giggles and picks up a balloon then drops it.  They are using her like one of those reach and grab sticks advertised on tv and there is water everywhere.

Our dad comes to the door and in order to get to him we have to walk through another bathtub right across the door.  It is half full of water, but everyone just tramps through it and into the hallway.  The boys scamper out and I yell, "John William, you come back in here and get your shoes.  He tries but they are wedged underneath the bottom of a door and he can't get them out.

I go out into the rest of the house and now I am a guest.  It is a Honey Boo Boo type house where the baby throws herself around the floor landing on the balloon and laughing.  The boys are playing with a mongrel dog the size of a pony and dad is sitting on the "throne" in the living room.  I still need to use the bathroom, but the only toilet is the throne in the living room.  It is up on a dais right next to the front door.  There is a wading pool in the middle of the room where the boys frolic when someone knocks on the front door.

It is the neighbor and she has an even bigger dog with a wooden snout almost like an alligator.  I am afraid of it, but the mom tells me it won't hurt me.  I push aside the plastic sheeting that serves as walls between the living room and hallway and the dog growls menacingly. 

I am so terrified I sneak out the back door and look for my bike so I can go home only when I look around I don't know which way home is and there are loose dogs everywhere in a barren landscape of yellowed hills.