This morning a girl was driving down the train-tracks in her beat-up maroon car. Suddenly she turned the wheel sharply to the right and the car became stuck on the tracks. She looked panic stricken as she realised a train was on its way, at some undetermined distance and speed from the scene. She was running down the tracks when her two dogs materialised. I knew she was more worried about her dogs' safety than her own. They were following her and I was wondering why she didn't run sideways to the fence to save herself and the dogs rather than run down the tracks.
----As if from nowhere, my mother appeared on the other side of the 6 foot fence brandishing a packet of schmackos. The dogs and the girl came towards her, the girl with a look of relief on her face, the dogs with the look of gleeful hunger. She threw a schmackos at one of the dogs, he jumped up, leaping towards the fence. I thought he would go over the fence (presumably this was the plan), he opened his mouth as the schmackos sailed --
----"Daniel. Your Dad's on the phone..." whispered my aunt. "He's just here, I just woke him up" she explained to the handset.
----"Huh. What?" I said sleepily, wondering if the dog had caught the schmackos successfully or crashed head-long into the cyclone fence. I glanced at the clock radio on my bedside table: 8:20 AM.
----"Your Dad. He's on the phone..." she said, touching my right foot, shaking it slightly.
----"Yeah, I'm up." I said, swinging my body onto its back. My aunt handed my the phone.
----"Huh? Yeah? What?" I croaked.
----"Have you got your computer with you?" Dad asked.
----"What? No--"
----"Why not?"
----"What is this about?"
----"There's a thing I want to buy on eBay and there's some server error here so the internet isn't working and I need you to bid on it for me. Could you use your uncle's computer?"
----To say I was dumbstruck would be understating the situation.
----"Wait wait wait..." My mind attempted to process this information. I stumbled to form a coherent sentence. "You woke me up to buy you something on eBay."
----"Yes, hurry up it ends in ten minutes."
----"Right."

Even when I'm in a completely different house he can still ruin my morning. He's been known to wake himself up early to catch an eBay deadline, but I never thought he'd stoop so low as to wake me up to catch one, least of all when I'm staying at another house!