A property manager's pigstye, a day at the lake nearly turns tragic

I was living with Sharon in an apartment again. This one was the "manager's special." It came with no cleaning deposit and low enough rent to be enticing. It was also a dump. The previous tenants were the property owners and they had abdicated all their manager's responsibilities, leaving the whole place in anarchy. Trash was being left near the dumpster area by surrounding neighbors and businesses with impunity. 

The car, which I guess came with the place, was a nice Subaru Outback that someone had attempted to repair with silicone ducting which wasn't up to the task of routing evaporative emissions vapors back into the tank. It was turning into jelly. Worse yet, it was routed into the passenger compartment in a very conspicuous way which would never pass smog, let alone function. 

I'm not one to cast racial aspersions, but this was the kind of Mexican automotive re-engineering from which stereotypes are born. The previous owners were, in fact, Guatamalan. 

The inside of the apartment was full of all kinds of half-finished projects, rat poop and boxes. They'd been living this way a long time, but it looked as if they thought it would only be temporary. 

I found some closet shelving that was a nice unfinished hardwood, which was being protected from the rat poop and paint can drippings by a second layer of particle board, giving the shelves the appearance of being crap themselves. I took off one of the boards and was amazed at the quality of wood that was being hidden away underneath. 

Outside the master bedroom was a balcony looking out over a small private yard. The entire yard was a giant pot garden, though it had fallen into decay like the rest of the place. Bob Orrick was to supposed to come by later to visit, or perhaps offer advice on the property, and I didn't want him to see this. 

At one point in my life, I'd have been proud of such an operation, but now I just wanted to get rid of it. It was a vestige of my former life, and frankly, more trouble than it was worth. 

When I was out dropping off some crap in the dumpster, I noticed a trashcan full of corn and other industrial waste. I asked Daniel Kellitt about it, since he was also out there dumping his unauthorized garbage, mostly beer bottles. 

I let Daniel's trespass slide, in exchange for information about the corn, which he gladly divulged. It was Well-and-Med, a company down the alley. Since the fences had all fallen into disrepair there was an easy path to our dumpster. 

I took their heavy trashcan full of corn back to their place of business on a dolly. Fortunately, the corn, which wasn't in cans but just poured out into a metal trash bin, hadn't yet begun to stink. But that was immanent, so I imagine this was why the unlawful dump was made. 

The owner and an employee were there and acted like they expected me. They were actually standing out by their own dumpster, as if waiting for me to deliver a shipment, and they readily took the corn off my hands.

Since I always remember more of the latter part of a dream cycle, I always have to work backward. Before the nasty apartment with the pot garden, and before the corn incident or poorly repaired Subaru, I was out on the lake in a canoe. 

I had a kid with me and we were going to do some fishing. Or at least I was going to do some fishing. The boy, it appeared, was going to go into the water, flail about in the boat traffic lanes and get himself into trouble. He was wearing a life jacket, so I thought, "No big deal." 

But it was a big deal because apparently he'd gone too far out into the current and was in danger of being sucked down some Class I rapids near the outlet of the lake. Should that happen, I would be in no position to be able to rescue him in my cheapo plastic canoe, so I scrambled to get to him before he reached the point of no return. 

Just before I got to that critical moment of being able to grab him or making the decision to "let him go," a jet ski appeared out of nowhere and scooped him up. No harm, no foul. He wasn't my kid anyway. 

I'm sure more happened to stitch the dream together, but I don't remember what it was. So, there you have it, in all its corny, superfluous detail.