In the Virtual Bank Line

The Pirate and the girls and I are at a big family retreat. We're sleeping on a fold-out couch in a room with at least three other people sleeping in cots and sleeping bags around the floor. There are more people sleeping in other rooms. Someone yells my name (not "Mommy," so I know it's not one of my children), and I yell back "Fuck off!" because I'm not ready to wake up yet. The Pirate digs me in the ribs and chides me for being rude to my family.

Then the Pirate goes off somewhere and I go to my father's house. There are two small apartments attached to Pop's house that he rents out, and as I'm sitting there in the kitchen, a guy that I went out with a couple of times and then dumped because he was a total loser walked in from one of the apartments. "You rented to him?" I said. "Yeah," my stepmother says. "You know him?" But when he comes back out, it's Mike M. and I say "Oh, yeah. He's a good guy."

Mike M. starts telling me that he's submitted a couple of short stories to a contest being held at a local bar, and he's really nervous. I go to the bar to meet the Pirate for lunch, and as I get there, they're announcing the results of the contest, and Mike M. has won! I notice that several of us are clapping and cheering more than politely, and it turns out that, while quite a few of the Nanos have turned out, the winner himself didn't make it.

Just as the Pirate was showing up for lunch, the alarm went off.