Sometime during the weekend, I think it was late saturday night while I was returning home from my cousin's house, I happened to step through a temporal vortex. I think I went through 20 minutes worth of spinning, surrounded by pretty colors. When the vortex finally spit me out, I was standing out in front of the Maniac Mansion(R) mansion.

At that time, I was wishing that I would have shaved, or went home a few moments earlier so that I would have missed the vortex.

"Come on Dave, we have to save Sandy!"

The Nerd had said that. It was my guess that me and the vortex pulled a quantum leap kind of thing. You'd think that I'd be excited about it or something, but at that time of night, nothing gets you excited. I searched my memory for anything related to maniac mansion, and spoke the only thing that came to mind.

"Don't be a tuna head, Screech!"

A uncomfortable silence fell over the group. I stopped to think about what a 'tuna head' actually was, but my thoughts were interrupted by something annoying.

"Its Bernard."

We set out to find a way into the mansion. I started around to the back door when the Nerd found the key under the front porch. We would have used that key, but the Brother had already found a way in and opened the front door for us.

The Brother made the mistake of going into the kitchen. It was common knowledge for me to never enter the first door you find in a maze, as theres usually something bad behind it.

I think the Nerd went to the living room first. He said something about getting a radio tube and fixing the phone.

Meanwhile, I wandered upstairs and into the room with the TV, which I watched for a good 15 minutes. It claimed that there were these three guys that would publish anything, and I thought to myself "Midway?"

I went back downstairs and my memory started reminding me, something about microwaving water. There was blood all over the kitchen sink, so I decided to get some water from the pool. I got an empty jar from the backroom, smashed a bottle of film developing fluid, and took a box of tentacle chow, figuring that I could probably give it to the Nerd and he'd figure out what to do with it. Back in the kitchen, I popped the jar of water in the microwave and set it for 10 minutes.

You see, at the time I was fully aware that I could damage the microwave and stuff, but my thinking was that if the crazy lady came back, it was a perfect booby trap. The chainsaw caught my attention again, and I remembered seeing a locked gate by the pool. I grabbed it and went out back again. Behind the gate was a garage with a kickass car in it. The key was in the ignition, and immediately I thought that I could use this car to track down the Vortex and get the hell out of there.

About then I heard the scream "ARG, RADIATION!" It sounded like the Nerd, but it could have been that crazy lady, so I didn't worry about it.

I hopped in the car, put on my seat belt, adjusted the mirrors, and turned the key. Nothing. I couldn't get the engine to turn over. The keyring had a few other keys on it, so I took the whole set and got out of the car.

Something caught my eye though, a small keyhole on those crazy startrek engines on the back of the car. I couldn't resist, and found the key that corresponded from the keyring.

My first instinct said run. Since its usually right, I did.

Upstairs I ran into some punk Teenager. He seemed a bit pissed that the car just left.

"Who took the car?!"

"Oh uhh... I think it was your Mom, she said something about having to get some groceries and stuff." I was a bit nervous, but my survival instincts were in full gear now.

"Dammit, I was just about to go to the Junior Anarchist Meeting!"

"Sucks to be you."

"Hey, who the hell are you?"

"I'm err... I'm a friend of your Dad's."

"My dad doesn't have any friends!"

"Well, I'm not so much a friend as a... a student! Yeah, he's been teaching this physics class through the internet."

"Oh, cool. Umm, what are you doing here... so late at night?"

"I had to ask him a few questions... about the homework. He said to come right over, since he needed to demonstrate the answers to me through an experiment."

"Well, he's probably downstairs in the lab."

"Yeah, your Mom sent me up here before she left. She wanted me to tell you to..." I paniced. I couldn't think of anything off the bat. I leaned back a bit, so I could run if I needed to, but just then, the Tentacle Chow fell out of my jacket.

"You dropped this," said the punk Teenager as he picked up the box.

"Yeah, thats it. She wanted you to feed the..." I looked at the box, "...the tentacle!"

"I hate that tentacle. Everytime I go near it, it asks me to be the drummer in it's band."

"Ahh, a band tentacle, eh?"

"Yeah, all it ever plays is that grunge rock stuff."

"Oh. Must be horrible then... you know, living in the same house as it."

"Yeah, that thing will be the first to go when I blow up this place."

"Well, catch ya later."

Considering that there was a Grunge Tentacle upstairs, I decided not to go up there. Instead, I went back downstairs to see if the Nerd had fixed the phone. I figured that maybe there was the possibility of it working, and that there was a chance of maybe my being able to call Robert and ask when the next Vortex is coming, so I can hitch a ride home on it.

I bumped into Sandy and the crazy Doctor in the living room. They were having a conversation on theoretical physics and stuff when they noticed me.

"Hey professor, I had a question about the homework--"

I stopped myself. At that time during the night, little mistakes like that are common. However, luck was on my side.

"Oh, are you from the PHY-126-0 group?"

"Err, yeah."

Sandy looked up and had this big happy face. I forced a smile, considering that she wasn't much to look at.

"Dave, you do care about physics!"

Things had gotten really odd and I wanted to get the hell out of there right away. With that, I tried tapping my boot heels together three times and saying "Lemme out, lemme out, lemme out!" I assume it worked, because when I opened my eyes, I was standing in the Edgewater parking lot. I got home fast and went to sleep.

In the morning, I heard on the news about a major nuclear explosion somewhere out west that vaporized a small town. It was then that I thought, gee, if not for Nabisco Brand Tentacle Chow, I would have died in atomic death.

Thanks Nabisco Brand Tentacle Chow!