I leave from my work, just to duck out for a few minutes to look at some real estate. A few of my colleagues go with me, just tagging along.

The property is over in downtown Beaverton, but it's hilly there and there's a pretty nice neighborhood where this home is. We get there and park, where we're greeted by the home owner and the real estate agent, who tell us all about how wonderful the house is, the custom wood floors, etc. They also say that the price is $600k, which is too much for me. I tell them this, and they justify their price, "but a beautiful home like this, in Forest Heights.." and I say that I'm not saying their price is wrong or that they won't get it, but that it's probably too much for me.

I start to look through the house, going first into the kitchen. Immediately in front of the door is a large table, blocking the doorway such that it's impossible to even pass through the room. Seems an odd choice for presenting a nice house. My colleagues go in ahead of me, and just climb across the table. On the table are a number of steam-emitting devices that are fogging up the room. I don't get it at first, but then I realize that they're trying to simulate a kitchen full of cooking, like on Thanksgiving or something. I don't feel comfortable just climbing across the table, so I find a trick way I can scoot around it on the side.

That's all I remember about the house, but it comes with a fairly large piece of property, so I go out back to see it. I'm surprised to find five or six cabins backs there, arranged in a semi-circle. They are all different, like they were built at different times in different styles, but they are all very small cabins, just like 15x15, and in various states of disrepair. I remember that I actually came here some time ago, to look at one of these cabins that was for sale. I'm pretty excited about the cabins, so I go back to ask the owner or agent about them, and she says "they're closed". I don't know what this means - like, they are condemned, or just not available to view? I don't seem to get an answer to this.

But it's time to head back to work. First I have to drop off this three-wheeler; I don't remember driving it, but I think they loaned it to me to get out to the back part of the property. I park it in this cubby, but it wants to roll away so I'm looking for some parking brake. A couple guys come along and they say "oh, you can't get it started? Here, you need the turtle" - dragging over this fixture that is designed to look like a turtle, which plugs into the bike, and has an electric starter so you don't have to kick it. He quickly plugs it in and starts up the machine, then starts messing around with some other attached device with some LEDs and buttons on it.

"Are you tuning it up?" I ask.

"Yeah, you need to tune these up fairly often, whenever you can."

"I'm not going to ride it. It's not even mine, I was just returning it to these people but it was rolling away."

He stops what he was doing, does something that holds it in place, and walks away.