I was terribly grumpy yesterday afternoon. I was doing a project at work that was difficult and not much fun, and I wasn't feeling particularly well. I'm assuming that's the reason for what happened later . . .

I came home and had a cup of instant soup for my dinner--we'd gone out to Genghis Khan for lunch for Jason's birthday at work--it's the Mongolian barbeque place, one of my favorite places, and I'd had a big lunch. It seems like it was almost seven by the time I got home, and by the time I'd talked to Bob for awhile and watched the end of Babylon 5 with him, and had my soup, and read some email, it was almost 9:00, and time for Nash Bridges.

So I made a bowl of popcorn and took it upstairs to the office. It was a repeat, one I'd seen not too long ago, so I was disappointed, but I watched it anyway.

Bob came upstairs and said he wasn't feeling very well, either, and he was going to go to bed, so when the show was over, I went back downstairs and thought I'd play The Sims for awhile.

I have that "family" of Zen Buddhist monks that I haven't done much with, so I thought I'd see what they were up to.

I kept telling them to go fix meals, but they'd walk up to the refrigerator, then turn away, shaking their heads. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I mean, sure, they were monks, but even monks have to eat.

I watched them for awhile, and finally figured out that there was a waste container too close to the refrigerator door that was preventing the door from opening--it looked far enough away, but I guess there had to be enough room for them to be in front of the door and for the door to open.

I fixed that--I moved the waste barrel--but by that time I was sort of bored with them, and since I wasn't particularly invested in their lives, I just turned on "ultra speed" and left them alone to see what they'd do.

They didn't do very well at all.

Even though I'd fixed the problem in the kitchen, and even though they were obviously hungry, they wouldn't fix meals for themselves. And they wouldn't go to bed--they'd collapse in the yard, or on the floor, or wherever they happened to be.

They would wake up from their nap on the floor, stumble around for awhile yelling about how hungry they were, then collapse again and sleep for a while longer. It was kind of interesting, in a macabre sort of way . . .

Before long, it became obvious that the two little boys weren't going to go to school on their own, and after two days, the call came that Mosquito was being sent off to military school. He looked so forlorn walking down the steps in his little uniform.

He walked on down the sidewalk all alone, and then, like in a Stephen King novel or one of those medieval maps that say "Here There Be Dragons" at the edge, he walked off the end of the world and was never heard from again.

It was all pretty much downhill after that.

The next one to leave was Zazen.

He put on his little uniform and started down the steps . . . but then something happened. I never did figure out if he wanted to say goodbye to his teacher, or whether he just needed to go to the bathroom before the long bus ride to the military school, but he went up to the bathroom where Sesshin was, they talked for awhile, and then instead of Zazan taking off for boot camp, they seemed to get stuck.

My guess is that it may have had something to do with Zazen not actually existing anymore--once he put on the military uniform, he disappeared from the family roster--but somehow, like a ghost, he was still around even though I couldn't control him.

Whatever the reason, he couldn't (or wouldn't) leave, and Sesshin couldn't leave, either. I tried to intervene. I tried to get Sesshin to go to the kitchen and eat something, or go down to the dormitary and sleep, but he would walk out onto the landing outside the bathroom, pace for awhile, then go back in.

They were obviously not happy about it--there was much screaming and yelling and stomping around, and whining, and crying, and fighting--pushing and shoving and insults thrown.

Sesshin seemed to have some sort of existential moment at one point--he seems to be lamenting his situation, saying something like, "Why couldn't I have had a normal life? I could have had a wife and family, and now I'm stuck here in this bathroom for all eternity with this whining military brat!"

The grim reaper showed up soon after that, and a headstone appeared on the bathroom landing. Zazen changed from his military uniform into his robes to mourn Sesshin's passing (I didn't see that happen, and I don't know how it happened, but it did), but he still couldn't seem to leave, and soon there were two tombstones on the landing.

By this time, it was getting close to midnight, and I needed to go to bed, but I wanted to see how this was all going to end. I went looking for Roshi, the senior member of the family, and found him passed out on the lawn:

Nicely arranged, wasn't he? Lined up precisely with the unpaid bills (the red item by his feet) and all the unread newspapers. I guess the monks will haunt anyone who moves into the temple now, although I doubt that anyone will ever move into it, because it's so expensive. Although maybe it would be sort of a cool, unique home for a rock star or someone . . . Hm.