It didn’t make much sense how we were all suddenly at my mom’s family homestead. The group there was: Tiff, whom I hadn’t seen since high school, my uncle Frank, my Dad, my sister-in-law Rachel, and my cousin Bailey from my Dad’s side of the family. My mom’s brother, Dad, and Rachel being there made sense. But not Tiff or Bailey. That was absurd. There was no reason they should have been there. How and when did we all get here?
Weird! Something about the homestead looked very different. It wasn’t the tin-roofed farmhouse. That old house hadn’t changed. The house exterior was still grey. The same four wooden rocking chairs are on the front porch.
It took me a moment, but I noticed it was the barns.
The red barn where they kept their tractors and the old dairy barn where my mom, aunts, and uncles milked cows were missing. In the place of the red barn, there was a basketball court that resembled the same court that Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson, Dell Curry, Alonzo Mourning, and the other Charlotte Hornets played on in the 1990s. Then there was a laundromat identical to the one where I washed my clothes in college, which was where the dairy barn should have been. When did this happen? I was just there last month.
We sat in camping chairs arranged in a triangle beside the house. We ate dessert and talked amongst ourselves. I couldn’t hear much of the group conversation, but someone said that it was a great lunch. Some had pumpkin pie with whipped cream on glass plates, and others had rhubarb pie without ice cream in paper bowls. Except for Bailey, who pumped up a red rubber ball with a manual hand pump. The type of ball that we used for kickball or dodgeball. Why were we eating rhubarb pie without ice cream?
“Anyone up for a game of basketball?” Bailey asked the group. Our plates and bowls disappeared and were transported to the half-court line on the blue and teal (Hornet colors) NBA replica basketball court. My uncle and I were on top of the Charlotte Hornets mascot logo at the center point of the court. We picked our teams for the three-on-three basketball game. My uncle chose Tiff and Bailey. I ended up with Dad and Rachel. None of us played basketball except for Tiff, who played basketball for our high school and college in the North Carolina mountains.
The clothes we had on morphed into basketball jerseys and shorts. My team wore orange and navy blue colors, and they sported purple and yellow. I liked their outfits more. We skipped the tip-off, and the game began with them having the ball first. Bailey passed the red rubber ball to Tiff, who majestically dribbled it down the court. She stopped at the foul line to shoot a free throw. I don’t understand why. She didn’t get fouled. There was no one guarding her to foul her. The ball hit the backboard and landed in the hoop.
Next, my Dad stepped up to the same foul line. He bounced the rubber ball four times, shot the ball toward the basket, and completely missed. “And with that air ball, you get an H”, my uncle Frank shouted. I thought we were playing regular basketball, but we played a game of HORSE instead. My uncle shot next, then me, followed by Bailey and Rachel. My team lost after I attempted a granny shot from the three-point line and missed. Tiff’s team accrued H-O-R, and it felt like Tiff never missed a single shot.
“A bet is a bet! It looks like we’re mowing the lawn,” I told the group after losing the game. This is strange because I didn’t ever remember making this bet.
Bailey, Tiff, and my uncle dragged three camping chairs from beside the house down to the basketball court. They sipped frozen drinks with umbrellas and watched us (the losing team) mow different areas of grass. Dad started around the house, Rachel went down to the laundromat, and I mowed around the basketball court and the winners. Where did they get those drinks?
We all used the same gas-powered push mowers. The old red mowers had lightning stripes down their sides. I remembered using the same type of 1990s model to mow the lawn of the house I grew up in.
Going around Baily, Tiff, and my uncle was interesting. I asked them to move. They remained seated, lifted their legs straight up in the air, and I mowed right under their legs. It was like when someone asks you to move your feet while sweeping the floor or vacuuming the carpet.
What we did with the grass clippings was absurd. Instead of bagging or dumping the clippings into some backyard compost, we dumped them all inside the washers and dryers in the laundromat.
Another thing that was crazy was that we finished mowing the massive lawn in only a few minutes. I didn’t know when Dad and Rachel left, but it must have been immediately after they wrapped up. I was the last one to finish their section. Afterwards, I went inside the laundromat to dump the last heavy mower bag of clippings into one of the large dryers.
When I returned to the basketball court, there was one around. Baily, Tiff, and my uncle were just there. There were no chairs or signs that anyone had been there except for the red rubber ball we played with atop the court. Where did they go? Maybe to the house.
But there wasn’t a soul in the house. There were no cars in the driveway either. Everyone left without saying goodbye.
I took a shower because I was gross and smelled like freshly cut grass. Oh no! I was washing shampoo out of my hair, and then I remembered that I was leaving for Scotland the next day and still needed to do laundry and pack.
“Thank goodness the laundromat is next door. I can do my laundry there,” I sang.
After the shower, I grabbed several large black trash bags filled with my dirty clothes and unscented laundry detergent from my car trunk and headed toward the laundromat. Where were these trash bags when we needed to dump our grass clippings?
For whatever reason, I wasn’t concerned with sorting the dirty clothes but instead ripped each bag open and placed the unclean clothes into three large washing machines. Then, I poured in the detergent and inserted six dollars’ worth of quarters into the coin slots and started the multiple washing cycles. I never carry quarters, but somehow I had enough.
It was nice having the whole laundromat to myself. I passed the time by looking at photos of the Scottish Highlands and castles. Beautiful! The washing machines finished with a sequence of beeps that sounded like the beginning of the Full House opening theme song from TGIF. I must’ve selected a quick wash cycle because the cycle finished in no time.
I opened the first washing machine lid and pulled out a clump of wet clothes and glass. Damn! We had dumped all our grass clippings into those machines.
I panickily opened the second washer and found more wet clothes and glass clumps. Double Damn!
Then I moved on to the third and opened the lid to more unsalvageable clothes. Triple dog damn!
All my clothes got ruined. How did this happen? What was I going to do? I kicked the washing machine. I screamed something worse than “Damn.” Neither was helpful. I was so frustrated and angry at myself. I was about to fly out to Scotland in four hours.
I awoke in my bed.
I was confused.
But none of it mattered. All those strange events didn’t happen. It was all a dream. It was one of those dreams I vividly remembered.
Plus, my Scotland trip was a month ago.
<THE END>
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