Tide Pool Budget

Date: January 3, 2021

I was in the backseat of a car that a priest was driving. He was taking me home, but we were in Rohnert Park, CA (where a grew up as a teenager). He seemed very distracted, and I was asking him questions about news I had heard about outreaches of the church that had lost funding. He was in and out of the conversation saying it was worse than we know. I looked down and saw a binder with a pad of paper that had an old pastor of mine's picture on it and I wanted to ask the priest if he knew him.

Suddenly, He got off the freeway and started to get in a left turn lane, but at the last minute shot across three lanes to go straight and then suddenly he was gone and I was alone in the backseat of the car while it was still moving.

Scene Change:

I am at a house (presumably my house) and I am telling someone that a gal we know will be picking the girls up early from school to go on a trip with my wife . The next thing I see is my wife leaving with her priest to go to the airport. I wave goodbye.m to them, but not long after I get a call from her saying the gal is sick and can't take the girls so I need to get them packed and get them to the airport. I ask what time their flight is and she says "it left an hour ago". Confused I said "so they missed the flight?" Then she said "no, actually it leaves in an hour at 6pm". We still have enough time. So I ask what I need to pack and she explained that they will be at a two day camp, so just the basics. I hurry to pack their bags so I can get them from school and to the airport on time.

Scene Change:

The scene changes and I am in a large classroom with about 100 other students. The teacher is clearly distraught as he wraps up his teaching and says "ok class one last thing before we conclude for today". He then backs away from the chalkboard where he was standing and on the board behind where he previously stood were the words Tidepool Budget and below that a list of about 15 names and small drawings of the people. It then read something to the effect that we are so sorry, but these people can no longer be at this school but they will always be family. I looked carefully over each name several times to make sure I didn't miss anything and to be sure I wasn't on the list. Once I confirmed I wasn't on the list I looked at the teacher who was crying and over in the left hand corner. I saw my wife who was looking at me with joy that I wasn't on the list. Slowly the students whose names were on the board started to leave the room.

The End!