That same old fishing dream -- Hope, Anne Perkins and my European vacation

 

I don't remember much, and I'm still at a deficit of sleep. Perhaps I will go back to sleep and try to re-enter the dream I was having, in which I was on my bike, searching out the perfect fishing spot along a river near a mountain lake. I'd been there before, but this time I had company. We both kind of knew the area, so I'm not sure who was leading who, and I have yet to even discover the identity of my traveling companion. 

I'd better get back to the play before the daylight fully awakens me and the whole set of my dreamscape is disassembled and packed up for the day. 

----

Well, no dice. That dream abandoned me like a  <insert clever analogy here>  something that rapidly escapes and leaves one in the lurch. Only it wasn't a lurch that I was left in, but a European vacation venue. I believe Hope DeLeon, my first teenage lover, was there, but only as a sideline figure.

I was staying in a small upstairs room with an annoyingly narrow and steep staircase, which I found myself frequently ascending and descending because I kept forgetting things and having to return to my room. I was also sharing the room with a young mother with a baby, who was forever getting into trouble by tumbling down the stairs. I witnessed one such accident with horror, unable to help as the tiny toddler bounced end over end all the way to the bottom. 

"You really ought to put in a baby gate," I chided. 

The mother offered some resistance to the idea, since I was a foreigner and obviously didn't know how things were done over there. And anyway, where would one put such a gate? It was like talking to myself about doing some home maintenance project that I'd been forever procrastinating. By the time I'd have convinced her, the child would be an adult.

"Perhaps, right at the top of the stairs?" I persisted. "And you'd better check on the child, since that was such a nasty fall." 

The baby was crying, but didn't appear broken, despite the long, bumpy trip down the stairs. She reluctantly went down and scooped up the child, who calmed down instantly, and the whole incident was forgotten. 

"Let's go swimming," she said, wrapping the baby in a beach towel and heading down the stairs. 

Hope also went along, and I followed them, excited at the prospect of going swimming with the young ladies. But no sooner had I arrived at the pool, which was 3 flights of stairs down, and in the hotel lobby, than I remembered that I'd forgotten to bring my bathing suit. Back up the stairs I went, grumbling, but still determined to make a go of the swimming party.

But arriving down at the pool a second time, I realized that I'd forgotten my beach towel. I contemplated the long triple staircase ascent and decided that I'd rather drip dry than bother with that whole nonsense all over again. We played around in the pool for a bit, but sooner than I'd have liked we were all climbing that damned staircase again, with me wet from having no towel.

Back up in the room, I got a closer look at the mom. She had looked a bit like Ann Perkins, and had a fetching smile, although her teeth were slightly stained and cracking. Of course, this seemed not the least bit coincidental, since I've been obsessing over dental issues of late. I decided we needed to take a selfie together, so I whipped out my old digital camera and we leaned back on the bed. The baby, fully awake and in pristine condition, popped it's little head up and photobombed the shot. It was adorable, so I took a few more shots for good measure.

Eventually, it became time for me to get on my way. I said goodbye to the mother and to Hope and made one final trip down that staircase from hell. That was one thing I wouldn't miss, I told myself. As I checked out at the front desk, I contemplated leaving some negative feedback about it, but decided against it. I was in another country, and they'd probably just laugh at my silly American ideas about staircases and such.

I loaded my travel bags into my tiny two seat sportscar and sped off down a narrow road that was bordering a good sized creek. I don't know what the word is for something larger than a creek but still not quite a river, but whatever it is, it was one of those. 

The road was being mowed by some workers in a farm utility vehicle. Some kind of contraption that looked like a grain harvester, but smaller to accommodate the narrowness of the road. They were doing a rather patchy job of it, though, and I kept running into unmowed sections of green grass that were several feet tall.

In trying to skirt some of the more dense grassy areas, I weaved back and forth on the narrow road in my nimble little sports car. At some point I decided to just go for it and blasted blindly through the grass, like a teenager plowing through a cornfield in their father's pickup truck. 

This strategy didn't work out so well, and I soon found myself stalled out sideways on the edge of the roadway, teetering over the bank of the river/stream. I managed to extricate myself from the car, clawing the grass and soft soil of the bank. The car, however, didn't have this survival instinct and promptly slid into the drink upon my exit.

Damn, I thought. I'd have to try to retrieve the car, which was doing a slow motion submerge into the swift green water of the creek. I did manage to hoist the car up, one-handed, a feat that was only possible because those European sports cars are so miniaturized and constructed out of light materials. It literally fit in the palm of my hand.

But it also fell out of the palm of my hand, and back into the drink it went, this time vanishing below the surface for good. I sat there a while contemplating whether or not to dive in after it. Not knowing the depth of the creek, I opted to abandon it, and I continued the rest of my voyage on foot. 

When I reached the next town, I inquired of some locals about the depth of the creek. I told them about my abandoned sports car. One woman wanted to know the exact location, because surely it would be worth salvaging. I didn't think so, and I told her as much. I'd made up my mind that I could do without the encumbrance of some cheap toy sports car that would need a whole lot of restoration at that point.

The dream ended with me at an airport baggage check, telling my story to a mildly amused claims checker. I felt liberated, having relieved myself of the hassle of selling the sports car or returning it to the rental agency, whichever was the case, I don't know, exactly. But it was out of my hands; insurance would cover it, and I was free to exit the country. I'd managed to salvage my bags before the car went to its watery resting place, so I felt doubly lucky.

Fin.