I packed up my brief case and hurried to the car, hoping to beat the traffic home. I went over the bridge and merged onto the main strip and turned onto the long web of roads that would eventually lead to my home where my wife and son would be waiting.

I thought about the joke my boss told that morning and laughed again. He always came equipped with jokes that were only funny because of their desperate attempt at being wholesome and inoffensive. The best one he told was about a talking fish. Or actually, it may have been a donkey. No - it was pitch black outside and the man mistook the donkey for his wife -- something of that nature. Everybody got a kick out of it, anyway.

I pulled into the drive way and put the car in park and reached over to pick up my briefcase.

"Shit!" I shrieked. There was a porcelain white girl with auburn hair grinning from ear to ear with her face pressed against the passenger window. "What in the hell are you doing here, girl?" I popped open the door and jumped up and tried to look stern.

The girl came running around the front of the car with her arms held out yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" She jumped as high as she could but only managed to hug my thigh.

"Laura! Get out here and get this child off of me!" I couldn't pry myself free from her, so I hobbled to the front door hoping my wife would come to help me, but a stranger stood in the doorway wearing an apron and drying her hands on a dish towel.

She looked deeply concerned. "Honey, what's the matter?"

"Who are you!? What the fuck is going on here?!"

"Jim! Language!"

I staggered backwards, dropping my briefcase and almost falling. My eyes darted around frantically looking for anything familiar, but I was lost. I had driven down the wrong road to the wrong house and been greeted by the wrong family. Jesus - save me from this place. I stumbled to the car and fell into the driver's seat and got ready to leave as fast as I could, but then I froze. The girl was clinging to her mother's apron, crying. She looked like she had just seen her father fall out of a plane at cruise altitude. I turned the car off and calmly stepped out of the car. I cautiously walked to the front door where they stood. "I'm sorry," I said to them.

"Welcome home."