Last weekend, my dad’s brother, David, came from Missouri to visit.
I had never met my famous Uncle David. Actually, I had never met any family from my dad’s side. All I know is that his mother, father and sister had died, and his brother had had 3 wives and a new girlfriend. (When I had heard this, I had suspected him of being an axe murder. Turns out, be was only looking for love, but in all the wrong places.)
When I meet someone I had never known before, I try to avoid them as much as possible. Uncle David was no exception, but it was difficult to navigate around him in our tiny kitchen when he was making some weird fruit dessert and I was making my infamous potatoes. He tried to make small talk with me and my sisters at dinner, but we mostly mumbled and laughed at the appropriate times.
On the day before he was to leave on a 12-hour drive back to Missouri, we drove an hour to Driftwood, a city nearby. Driftwood was apparently famous for The Salt Lick, this huge BBQ restaurant that I had never heard of. The trip there was long and boring, and I had politely left my iPad at home, in case David wanted to talk.
He didn’t.
That was an hour of my life filled with uncomfortable silence that I will never get back.
The food at The Salt Lick was good, but I don’t think it was worth the drive. On the way home, I was looking out the window for entertainment. Then I saw it.
The sign that changed my perspective of the whole world.
A sign that read ‘Wizard Academy’.
So of course, we had to go there. We followed this long, dark trail with trees everywhere. There were strange lights that flickered among the mossy wilderness, fireflies. Then we saw it, the other sign.
According to Harry Potter, wizards can’t use technology of any kind.
Well, this sign was lit up with florescent lights, so it must not be Hogwarts.
But I took a picture anyways and went home.
