Funky Road Trip, Magic Portals and Nut Houses

I was supposed to take my sister to get tested for autism. It was difficult to find a place that tested adults for it. My mom called everywhere, and finally, one place said they did it. She made the appointment and we drove two hours, using a GPS to find this prestigious facility.

The GPS took us through winding streets and past a broken down building claiming to be the high school. The roads started breaking up and cracking. Nobody was around. We crossed rail road tracks I didn't even know existed in that town.

We ended up in a tiny community crawling with cops. It was like, is there a prison here? Is there a killer running around? The place reminded me of a nightmare I had several months ago. The road sloped up just like in the dream, too.

Killing the car's alignment on some bumpy, broken road, we passed a narrow, bushy footpath. It had a name like it was an actual street. We reached a group of isolated buildings and squeezed down a dirt road only a truck could traverse. I swear those ruts were three feet high.

I parked the car in front of a squat, bleached building and we got out. A man appeared in the cement hallway as we headed for a metal door. He was gray. His skin, hair, shorts, jacket, socks and shoes. He asked for 75 cents, but we didn't have any.

We got through the screeching door and entered a sad, little room with a squeaky, wooden bench. It was probably pilfered from the ruins of the high school. I bet the ghosts missed it. Gross, white linoleum covered the floor. As my mom and sister filled out an inch thick stack of paper work, the gray man repeatedly walked in and out of the room. Pretty soon, all I could smell was un-wiped butt. The two women at the front desk didn't care. I started wondering if the man lived there. WHY would he live there?

A woman came in and said she would see us. She took us outside, through another metal door, and down a pale, narrow corridor and walked into a tiny cell. I don't even know how they managed to fit her desk in there. The door locked from the inside and there was a small window on it, like you see in the nut house in Terminator 2.

Here, she told us we were only consulting and wouldn't be testing. That was weird, because my mom clearly set up an appointment for testing. The woman started asking bizarre questions, because she thought my sister was sexually active, on drugs and that we were there to admit her to the madhouse. My mom said, "No! She's here to be tested for autism!" The woman got confused and left to talk to her adviser. She came back and said their institution didn't test adults for autism and we were "misinformed." Punks freakin' sent us to a funny farm!

We high-tailed it out of there, bumped by the nightmare footpath, and ended up at the top of a hill. Where the heck was the main road? How'd I get to the top of this sky-scraping hill? If anybody tripped, they'd roll all the way to the bottom. We reached a drop with no fence, and houses were up against it. You could parachute down there. Best sledding hill ever, until you fly into traffic at the bottom. The thing was nearly vertical.

We took the roller coaster ride down and ended up back on the main drag, and realized that not only had we popped up at the top of a hill, but were on the opposite side of town from where we were in the first place, but had never crossed the main highway. I'm either made of magic, or we passed through a secret portal created by aliens.

Anyway, we decided to eat lunch in this new dimension. I was at the Speedway, but my mom said let's go to Taco Bell across the street. I drove on over the sidewalk and parked in front of it. I know I looked nuts, but there was nothing I could do about it. I'd just come from a nut house, you know.