There was a woman, I do not know her name. It may have been Juliet. She lived in a town called Mohawk, in Washington state. We were in her home. She was a friend of a friend, and had tattoos everywhere. She lived in a three-story brownstone. I asked her if I could explore it, and she said yes. I remember thinking to myself that Grandma and I had already checked out the upper levels, so I decided to go below. I went into every room, or so I thought. I came to the room Juliet was hanging out in, and helped her do dishes. Our mutual friend Hugh came in. He asked me if I'd seen the rest of the place. I told him I had, or, at least, I thought I had. He said I was mistaken.
Hugh took me into the other room, which was the start of a large mall. "All this for only $590 a month?" I asked him. There was a bowling alley, an ice-cream stand, a See's Candies shop. Oddest of all, this place was open for business, and I couldn't understand how I'd missed hundreds of people in Juliet's home.
There was a McDonald's, and in it, I saw my friend Joe and some of his friends. I'd met all these people before, and I realized I had met them when we were all staying in a tree, a large tree with plenty of branches to sleep on. I want to go as far as thinking it was a nodermeet, and my rationale for thinking this is because as I was being introduced to all of Joe's friends, they kept saying, "Remember? I'm ernest or I'm blah," various noder names. There were a lot of people at this McDonald's. I found a table and plugged my computer in (which was inside a backpack that randomly appeared on my back).
As I am typing away, I listen in on people's conversations. These people are all referring to each other by their noder names. Some pause and ask me what mine is. I am reluctant to give it away. I do not want them to know what bookishrogue looks like. One of these noders is Tom Cruise, but people call him ernest, his noder name. His dad is a noder, too. Tom Cruise comes over to me and begins talking. I pretend I have no idea he is a famous movie star, but we both know that's crap. I also decide to refrain from the topics of psychiatric drugs and religion, because we are having a pleasant conversation, and he seems happy to talk to a woman who is not swooning over him and his looks. I choose not to tell him that he's not my type.
During the conversation between Tom Cruise and me, I see a closet door near me open and a head peek out. I realize it's Adam Brody's head, and I squeal and run up to him. I ask him if it is okay if I hug him. "Sure, Rachel," he says. I gasp. "How did you know my name?" "Mrs. McCue told me. She told me you had an iron-on shirt you made with my picture on it." I want to show him this shirt, as we are now in a room that is attached to my bedroom, but I remember the shirt is in the hamper. Adam Brody and I chat for awhile about mutual friends we share, and he has to go. When he leaves, Tom Cruise comes back, smiling.
I go back to my computer, and realize there is a large, greasy guy in my seat. Worse, my power adapter plug is no longer working. On closer examination, I realize it's been bent out of shape, most likely by large, greasy guy. I point out to him what's he done. "Whatever," he says, "You should know that all Apple stuff breaks down in, like, a year anyway." I get very upset, explaining that Apple stuff doesn't break down in a year, and this adapter had not broken down, it was squished by a large, greasy, smelly guy. I whack him in the chest, and, surprisingly, he hits me back. All eyes in the room are now on me, but Tom Cruise is nowhere to be found. I hit LGS guy again, and tell him that the reason he has no friends and no ladies is because he is an asshole, and will not admit when he has done something as ridiculous as squish a short girl's power adapter. I tell him to take some fucking responsibility. I tell him to get a goddamn life. I hit him once more, hard, and tell him to get out of my goddamn chair. As he slowly gets up, I catch the eye of my sophomore year Religion teacher, Mrs. McKellogg, an elderly woman who'd witnessed the entire display, and I become very embarrassed. But she is smiling, and nodding her head enthusiastically, and I realize that despite how pious Mrs. M really is, she would have probably whacked him a couple of times and shared some choice words with him, too.