Chapter 97
Dreamland

Okay, it’s dreamtime again. I know you’re excited because I apparently smoke pot before I go to bed and that leads to interesting dreams. So this dream last night which I had the hardest time waking up from had a lot of familiar faces in it. I don’t remember how the dream started so I’ll just pick up where I remember. I was at a birthday party for my cousin (Spam) and we were letting her cut the cake and she sucked at it. So I started to take over for her. I cut the cake eerily well, I was almost hostile towards it but always cut it perfectly. I started to serve it up to people and my sister added the ice cream to each plate. For some reason I had to move tables so this guy that goes to church with me but I barely know him in real life decides to switch tables with me. I ended up sitting right next to him and we expected everyone else from our original table to move over as well but they didn’t. Our new table was darker and I was trying to turn on a stove range light (why we were sitting under the stove range I have no idea). I remembered turning on the light the day before or even early that day but I couldn’t find the button. I was pulled into finding this button, it was my main mission in life and I was frustrated that I couldn’t see it. The boy I was sitting next to kept looking at me because he didn’t know what I was looking for and I suppose the angle we were at it made it look like I was looking at him the whole time. So for some reason, either finding the button or giving up, I was suddenly serving drinks instead. It was root beer and someone had one and said it tasted funny. I was pouring drinks and then setting up people’s plates. I poured the last of the root beer into a cup and went to put pretzel sticks on the plate and had a brain fart and put them in the drink. It was for my friend so I called out to her and said, “You wanted pretzels in your soda right?” trying to find humor in my big blunder. So I go to the dining room of my parent’s house to grab another drink because there were a lot of people there and I knew that we didn’t just have one 2-liter bottle to quench all these thirsts. I found an empty bottle of lemonade and half a pitcher of kool-aid…some party. So I poured her some kool-aid and gave the drink to her. Then the guy that I was sitting next to had to leave for a long trip but he hoped he’d see me soon.
So then I’m skiing down a mountain…skiing…me…never going to happen. But I was pretty good and I was watching myself (you know, I wasn’t viewing it as myself but as though I weren’t in my body). But then I messed up and went flipping down the slope. A guy on a snow mobile saw it happens and comes over to check on me. He asks me if I’m okay and I recognize his voice as the guy from the party. I get up but then he rides off. So I start to follow, which is quite the feat, going uphill in skis…at least I suppose it is. He turns into a cave or something and some other guy comes riding out on a snow mobile…some very unattractive guy with a beer gut and no shame in showing it. I don’t fall for the trick though, I know they aren’t the same rider.
Suddenly I’m in this room with party boy and he is talking to me about how he missed me and blah blah, and that he brought me some gifts from his travels. So over by the bed (I suppose we are in his room either that or he decorates with beds…I should be scared) there are some books. I pick up the first one which is a very nice copy of W.B. Yeats poetry. I recognize it because I already own this book, but this is a hardback and the cover is prettier. I was pretty excited and thought it was sweet that he knew I liked W.B. Yeats and got me a nicer copy of the book. I started to flip through it though and there were little pieces of paper stuffed throughout it. One of them was a cipher leading to a message that I had to decode on the bottom. I recognized it because apparently earlier in the dream he had given me one (a cipher) to find him (at the location we were currently at), but I don’t remember dreaming it, I remember remembering it…if that makes sense. So at first I tell him I’ve already decoded this one but then it is date stamped and I see that it is after the date that he had given me the first one, but it was well before the date that we were at. There were options on the page and I can’t remember now if I had to decode all of them or if they were choices to answer the question I was trying to figure out. While I was looking at the cipher I heard my cousin’s voices. They were calling out to me and I got up to look out a window and I see they have brought their posse, including my mom’s dog George. So George is sniffing me out. I jump up and run into a storage closet to hide; explaining to my new little “friend” that they will find me and Burrito is really persistent. So one of the doors starts to rattle as Burrito attacks it trying to get in. Finally he gives up and for some reason I feel guilty and go outside to talk to them. I call over Spam and Burrito who in turn call their whole posse over. They tell me that they have been looking for me and I tell them that I don’t live at mom and dad’s anymore, I live here. (What the? I hadn’t realized I had moved in until I said it to the kids). So then they wanted to come in but for some reason all the kids have been in a water fight and they start to go into the house but I tell them they can’t come in until they are dry and I close the door on them but one of them got inside, it’s actually a girl I grew up with and I ask her how she always does that! (So apparently she’s done this strange trick before). I was so worried that anyone would be walking around on the hard wood floors with wet feet and that my “friend” would be angry with me. We were at the delicate beginnings of a relationship and I was worried my extended family would ruin it. The apartment/townhouse (whatever it was) was really nice! Three stories, hard wood floors, nice sized kitchen with an island and little bar stools. Nice carpets. It was mine, it was nice…but it was just a dream, and my alarm clock went off.
I didn’t want to get up, but I couldn’t get myself to go back to the dream, so I got up and did some work e-mails that I should have done yesterday.
Speaking of work e-mails, one had to do with the girl not showing up to training. This is the training class that I was scheduled for the day before and had to change my schedule at my store. Not only did she not show up but when I called her to check on it she said that they had told her she would be training on Friday. The store I was training her at was half an hour away from my house and I had driven out there, giving up hours at my store to get barely any training hours. I am getting some hours because I will be putting down my travel time and the time I spent at that store waiting and I will be reporting my mileage for this trip, especially because on the way home I got stuck in traffic that was moving at a snail’s pace. I will be compensated for that!
So on the way home I stopped back by my store to see if they were busy and needed help. Stupid me, the slowest night in grocery store history across the board is Tuesday night, it was a Tuesday night. However I ended up staying there for two hours talking to my friends!! I’ll admit I may just be a tinge lonely; at least I’m acting like it. And I really want a boyfriend which means I must be lonely right now. I complained to my friend about my current frustrations with work and I talked to her about how I’m going to single handedly revamp the entire program! I also let it slipped that there is no training for managers, they don’t know what the hell they are doing, the only training they get is possibly some from other managers when they start working, but there is no program to make sure they understand all their responsibilities. I have the same amount of knowledge about the front end procedures as the front end managers do, except they know how to look up customer cards. Also the front end managers are paid as any other department manager but the front end managers have to put up with more technical as well as customer service things, and all other departments (including their managers) answer to front end managers…so I think that maybe front end managers should get paid more since they do more. Anyway, so my other friend was listening to us and she told me that if I ever become a manager, to which I interrupted and said that being a manager would be my personal hell…so no, I never would be. She said if I became one, I had to give breaks on time. If I become a manager then I know I’m never leaving and I think I’ll just slit my wrist with the paper bags at work.
My question is…why did I spend so much freaking time there and why don’t I realize it’s weird and stop doing it? Probably because all my friends that I like to talk to are my coworkers and I never get to see them anymore.
When I finally got home (later because I stopped by my parent’s house as well) I had to park in my usual outcast spot. It was ten o’clock at night when I finally got home…don’t my roommates have to work in the morning? I come into the house and close the door to my room. I’ve decided that I don’t have to be friends with my roommates, I don’t not like them (well with the exception of Motor Mouth), but I don’t have to always hang out with them. Maybe I’ll regret thinking this later, but I really just want friends that they have nothing to do with. Does that make sense? I guess in a way it’s a form of independence. I’m tired of hanging out with their friends and feeling uncomfortable as well as unable to hang out with them without my roommates. So why bother? These people are not my friends.