Family Home and Candle Lit Card Games

Looking around Madam H's family's home. The home belongs to her grandfather. A young couple is looking for a room to rent. The price is pretty steep in their opinion. Madam H's mother recounts purchasing a room permanently for their daughter. It cost them several thousand dollars.

I get a small job working for them. Basically, I am a housekeeper. I clean up and take care of the dogs, two little chihuahuas. An i Pod is the source of music in the house. While cleaning I break it. I replace it with a cheap mp3 player. Hoping no one will notice, since I am the only one to operate it. However, this too breaks or just gets scuffed. I worry about having to replace it and the i Pod.

One of the two chihuahuas, the darker one, breaks something in the house. Perhaps the mp3 player? I put the lighter dog away. She is the favorite dog. The darker dog is only there to keep the other happy. They do not like him. I'm sure that once they hear of the incident they will take him out and possibly kill him. But NO! They can't do that! These dogs are in love! I have to save the dark dog for their love's sake. I run away with the dog during my workday to hide him back at my home.

On the drive back, I try to pull a stunt I've seen my dad do before on a nearly vertical road. The stunt fails and I find myself standing next to a police car --at least it's a nice charger to look at. The cop is an actress whose name escapes me. She is a pale brunette and is lounging atop my car. Okay lady cop. You have my attention. She starts talking to me about getting high. Her teeth look like they are made of butter. At odd angles and lengths and a soft, creamy yellow. She is telling me about how I could get high from mixing butter and something, when I notice she is eating small, dried mushrooms out of a plastic bag.

I'm saved when a blonde male cop drives up. Butter teeth tells him we are just chatting. And she was on her way out. He moves out of our path and we drive out separate ways. On my drive back I am met with a vision about Madam H's grandfather. He and his wife get a divorce. Her name started with a C, I'll call her Caleese. Someone is asking Caleese how they even got together.

Caleese's memory comes back for all of us to see. She is a beautiful young college student with fantastic brown eighties hair. While walking out of a library conference room, she throws some comment over her shoulder at a dissheveled long haired man. It is Madam H's grandfather, who is actually Everest But also Jackson Rathbone. Yet his hair looks like something you would see on Sir Isaac Newton. I and the other spectators actually stop mid-memory sequence to laugh at it. The young Caleese's comment is only addressed when she is almost out the door. He whispers something under his breath, but she hears him.
She turns and say, "Why do you seem to hate me? You never talk to me in the meetings."
Under his breath Everest whispers, " Because I secretly like you."
The audience and I chatter about how lame it is that this relationship started with not a real confession, but by good hearing and a weird habit of saying one's thoughts under one's breath.

The memory sequence leaves me at the front of the family home which I work for. I suddenly realize the problem of me leaving mid-workday and busy myself cleaning up outside. Outside I find a carton of milk, which I feel the pressing need to taste. It is as disgusting as you think milk found at random outside tastes.

I get the nerve to go inside and the family is gathered in the living room beside the open kitchen. Madam H offers me a cookie. I eat one and see a few over sized crab shaped cookies.

While pouring bright orange sprinkles onto the cookies, I ask Madam H about her grandma Caleese in a whisper. Not following the tendency of people to follow in a whisper, Madam H loudly begins to tell me all about her. I ask her if she should be speaking so loudly since her grandfather is in the room. He says it is fine. He was listening in the whole time.

I don't stay to hear any of it. Outside in my boots, my feet are getting wet. There is a small hole in my boots. After meeting some friends, I ask if they will go with me to try on boots at the Mountain Supply store.

Instead of trying on boots, I look at bundled T-shirts--they are all nerdy gamer shirts, which seems old to me. So I go to look at the card games. I ask to see the Harry Potter game. It turns out to have nothing to do with Harry Potter, which makes me wonder about all the other popculturey themed games.

We pulled out the cards and I as we read the rules I remembered playing it before. There were character cards which you could either lay out before you as part of your team. Or use to attack a weaker character in someone else's team, after which both cards are discarded. There were also magic and item cards you could use to attack enemy teams.
It seemed like a normal card game until we got to the candles. Each player was given a candle. There was a red candle to place in the middle of the game which would be lit and unlit every other player's turn or by special cards. The most interesting cards were the event cards. Their effect changed based on whether or not the candle was lit.

I had a handful of cards and was debating whether to kill my dad's character with my king character or to play it into my team. I was near winning and but needed at least one team character to win. So instead I layed down my king, attacked a character of the girl across from me, and then discarded.

I don't know if I won. I woke up to Barracuda by Heart.