Intruding

I sit in a crowded room with many other students. Our TA directs us to pick out our favorite shoe from our box. My box is filled with really ugly shoes, and I have a hard time finding something that is not a loafer. Finally I pull out the only colorful thing, a Pepto-Bismol colored pump with a bow on the toe. We go around the circle telling why we picked out shoe and I have a hard time explaining, "Well, I like the color, even though I really don't like wearing pink..." My TA takes the shoe and pulls the heel off, showing me that it converts into a flat. I like it even less now, and I say so, putting the heel back on, and realize how uncomfortable it would be to walk in a convertible shoe.

Now the class, which includes some people I know, has moved to a very messy house. While it wasn't us who messed it up, I feel like we should at least pick up, and the first task is to locate all of the portable phones. I find three out of the four; the last one has run out of batteries, so I decide to just clean up the rest of the house until I find it. Some of the walls are Chinese paper screens. I keep finding dirty dishes and bringing them to the sink for the dishwashing team to clean. As I bring the last, large pile of dishes, a car pulls up in the wooded driveway, and three people get out. Suddenly I realize this is Kris' grandparents' cabin (although arranged completely differently), and they're about to find me in the middle of their trashed house. We frantically wash the last dishes, but can't finish as Kris' great aunt comes in the house. His grandma is next, and pulls me into a hug, saying, "I'm so glad you came back like you said you would!" (This is true. In reality, the last time I saw his grandparents at the cabin his grandma said I should come back and I said I would.) His grandpa says, "I'm glad you took us up on the offer!... and you left a few dirty dishes, didn't you?" He chuckles, but I am incredibly embarrassed about the mysterious mess, and I leave very soon after.

I walk down a street that resembles the intersection of Delridge in front of my parents' shop, but in London/West Seattle instead of White Center. On one side fo the street is my grandma's old house. A few of my friends and I ave been sent on a mission, I think to open the door when the trick-or-treaters come, even though some filmmaker lives there now. We crawl conspicuously through the front yard, which has been trimmed of its nice hedges, and narrowly avoid some cobwebs getting through the shed into the backyard. We go in through the back sliding door and creep around silently. I get to the den, hear the television and see the silhouettes of children through the crack in the door, and finally feel like I shouldn't be there. I try to find my followers and silently tell them we need to leave, when the front door starts to open. "Abort! Abort!" I whisper, and fall through the floor into the garage.