Meanwhile, back in the cult

 

I dreamed I was back in the cult again, only I wasn't quite all the way in. I was somewhat on the periphery, and I had a modicum of autonomy. I'd been away for some time, but all the old people were there. Even my friends Richard and Martin, who'd left much later than I, were back in their old positions, performing their duties and participating in the services.

I called my mom on my camera phone. (That's a phone that looks like a camera, not the usual smartphone that looks like a tiny tablet.) I had to use this stealthy device to be able to communicate without looking like I was talking on the phone. I would pretend to be taking pictures and mumble imperceptibly while holding the camera up to look through the viewer.

"Hi, Mom. Yeah, I'm still here. No, I'm not 'back in the cult.' I'll be leaving in a few days. I'm just taking some pictures of what goes on here," I whispered, still self-conscious that eyes might be upon me or ears tuned in to my conversation.

"I can't hear you," she said. "The last few times you called, all I heard was background noise. It sounded like singing or something."

"I can't talk right now," I told her. "Worship service is about to begin. I'll leave my mic on so you can listen to what the sermon is about."

She didn't seem interested, and the line went dead. I was all alone again, my lifeline to the outside cut off. The voice of my mom had been my tether to reason, to the real world, and I was now feeling a little vulnerable.

The sermon started with a slide show. Robert was showing pictures from his glory days. People were responding with the usual oohs and ahhs, assuring those around them of their steadfast approval of all things Bobby. 

I clapped along with the rest of the group, perhaps a little louder, since I was seated nearest to Robert. Pictures of guitars, pictures of Bobby with female members, all showing him from the best angle, in his prime back in the 80s, flashed on the screen while he played a worship tune on his guitar. 

Taking part in the service and feigning applause was making me want to wretch, so I slipped out the back to get some fresh air. The cool ocean breeze revived me, and I stood out on the walkway outside the building watching the surf.

At least they'd chosen a nice spot by the ocean for their "Advance." (That's the Remnant equivalent of a retreat, for you uninitiated.) The meeting hall was on a bluff overlooking a bay, where some people were surfing the shorebreak. The waves, though wild and unruly, would deliver them right to their beach towels without mussing their hair, as they stepped off their surfboards and onto the sand as easily as one steps off an escalator. 

Jim Turnbough appeared out of nowhere, wearing a wetsuit. He had a way of creeping up on you, which was rather disturbing, since he was Robert's right hand man. Nothing got past him, and if he saw you slacking, it was sure to get back to Bobby. 

"Catching some waves, Jim?" I asked him casually. 

"We're all going down to the beach in a minute," he said. "You're expected down there. In proper attire."

I guessed that meant I should don a wetsuit too, though it wasn't specifically stated. It didn't matter. I wouldn't be there. 

Jim was holding a piece of hardwood that looked to be a template for some kind of stringed instrument. It was marked out with a ballpoint pen, with pilot holes for the metal fret inlays. 

"Is that a balalaika, or some kind of eight string guitar?" I asked.

"It's neither," he told me. "It's something Robert wanted me to make for him. It doesn't have a name yet."

I excused myself, saying I had to get ready. I wasn't planning to attend the meeting, though. I had other ideas. I was going to live stream their activities, broadcasting from a spot upstairs in the building that overlooked the beach where the event, likely another sermon, was to be held. 

Sermon on the Mount, sermon on the beach, sermon on the rocks, Bobby liked his dramatic backdrops. And he loved to hear himself preach. And you'd better love it too, if you knew what was good for you. 

I knew what was good for me, and it wasn't that. I figured I could finally put an end to Robert's cult of oppression if I could only get the ugly details of his message to the outside world. So, I set up my little table and turned my camera and microphone on. My podcast was about to begin.

"In case you didn't know," I began my monologue, "this is a broadcast from inside the compound of the Remnant cult. What you will be hearing will be live and unedited. I will be taking calls during the broadcast and answering any questions on the air. And now, let's begin."

I flipped the camera around and pointed it at the beach, where the sermon was just about to commence.

Then Jim Turnbough walked in.

----

Did you feel that? <shudder>  I did. The dream ended on that creepy note. I'd been found out and would certainly face the inevitable consequences. I woke up hoping to avoid all that, but it was still early, so I went back to sleep and found myself in the same dream, somewhere out of sync with the timeline I'd just exited. 

Martin and Richard were greeting one another on the stairs outside the building. Martin had a sub sandwich and was about to hand it to Richard.

"Brother, you betray me...with a sandwich!" Richard said jokingly.

Martin feigned an attack, thrusting the sandwich at him, sword-like, while Richard swooned melodramatically, as if stabbed in the heart. It was good to see the boys having fun, even if it was in the context of the cult.

Angry couple sues for defamation of real estate

Watch what you say in your dreams; it can come back to haunt you. 

In another dream, many months ago, I had been trespassing at a couple's house by the lake. I thought I'd smoothed it over at the time, and we'd sort of become friends, but apparently something I said about their house blocking access to the lake and being an eyesore had stuck in their craw. They said nothing at the time but waited until now, many months later, and in an entirely different dream, to exact their revenge.

I was in my backyard at home when the two sheriff's deputies rolled up in their SUVs. One officer was black, mid-thirties and wore glasses. The other was white, a crew cut rosy cheeked cherub just out of the academy. Not the most intimidating pair, but still, I was a bit put off by their sudden appearance.

They drove over my lawn and looked like they were headed for my marijuana garden. It was nothing expansive, so I couldn't imagine that was why they were here. It wasn't. They drove right past it. Anyway, it was disguised as a fruit orchard and the plants were difficult to spot. I had been growing some hybrids that looked just like lemon trees. They looked around for a minute or two and then drove off without saying anything. 

"I wonder what that was about," I asked my wife.

"Nothing good, I can tell you that," Sharon said ominously.

At that moment a man in a black trench coat appeared out of nowhere and whirled around to face us. He looked like the incarnation of evil, with a Guy Fawkes face and beard and sporting a black hat. Upon seeing his face, it became clear who he was. It wasn't the devil. No, it was far worse. He was the devil's lawyer.

"What are you here about?" I asked him. "We haven't done anything."

He sized us both up with a dismissive glance. 

"It will become clear just how much damage you've done, the both of you, with your destructive words. It has all been recorded, and the case against you is airtight," he said.

I tried to think back on who we might have offended so badly that they would hire the devil's own attorney. He didn't come cheap, but then, he'd never lost a case. Hiring him was like hiring a hit man. Worse, actually, since he left his targets alive, penniless and permanently defamed. Your reputation and bank account would be so decimated that you'd wish you were dead.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the lady who owned the lake house I'd dreamed about many months ago and surmised that it must be her and her husband who had initiated the lawsuit. She walked over to us and confirmed it, standing next to the evil attorney and saying coldly:

"This will teach you to say disparaging things about other people's houses."

The Impala

 

I dreamed my mom and Greg gave me cherry red '68 Impala for my birthday. It was sitting in the garage, awaiting its maiden voyage, and I was pacing around the house, antsy, waiting for them to finish eating breakfast, so someone could film me firing it up and driving it for the first time. 

"Would someone mind taking my phone and, you know, doing the honors?" I asked my mom, who was in the living room eating a bowl of fruit.

"Sure, sweetie," she said, "just as soon as Greg gets done with his breakfast." He was also eating a bowl of fruit.

This was taking too long, so I went to round up some of my friends to go with me on my drive. My childhood friend Steve Waugh was available, and of course, Cousin Tim wanted to go. Why not, it was a big car, lots of room for passengers. 

But before we could go, Greg just had to make one small trip to the bank or someplace to get some money for gas. They wanted to give me a hundred dollar bill to fill up the tank for the first time. We all piled into the minivan, and away we went.

At the bank, I was eager to get out of the van, so I opened the door and stuck my foot out before he'd even pulled into the parking lot. It got wedged in between the tire and the curb, causing me to cry out:

"Back the car up! My foot is stuck!" 

He backed the car up several times, but each time my foot kept getting wedged because he would reverse directions again before I could retract it. It was like some video loop where they keep showing the same moment of some idiot doing something dumb on instant replay. "Let's see that again. Ouch. That looks painful."

After an eternity or so of this, we got the money from the ATM and were back on our way home. Greg and Mom decided to do something else, leaving me and my friends to do the eventful drive without their supervision. But again, some pressing detail had been overlooked, and we had to borrow the minivan to run down to the auto parts store to get some critical component.

As we arrived in front of the store, a black unmarked car with lights flashing blocked our way. There were some cops in tactical gear writing someone a ticket for parking too long in a 15 minute zone with a busted parking meter. We waited for them to finish and for the car to drive off, and we got out of the van and slowly pushed it into the spot. Apparently, the van had run out of gas waiting for the cops to write the ticket. 

We went in and got what we needed, a gauge or some accessory for the car, and then walked to a nearby mall. I don't know what reason we had for going there, other than to use up the rest of the 15 minutes on the broken parking meter, but there we were in the mall, sitting on some benches in the food court.

It was during the pandemic, so in order to maintain the illusion of a busy mall, and at the same time enforce social distancing, mannequins had been placed on the the benches, so that one wouldn't be able to sit next to another human being. As a prank, my friends and I decided to sit down on the benches and remain perfectly still, hoping to surprise some unsuspecting shoppers. 

It didn't work, because when we sat down, we found that it was we who were being pranked. The mannequins all came to life and started writhing around like zombies. It was too creepy, so we got out of there.

I'd like to say that I eventually got to jump in the '68, get on the freeway and open it up. I'd like to, but I can't. I don't remember that moment ever actually occurring. At some point we were on the freeway, yes, and possibly even in the Impala, but we were in the slow lane, and Luis Ramirez went whooshing by us in his '64, doing at least a hundred. 

"C'est la Vie"

 

I woke up fuming from the ordeal of last night's dream. I was back in LA, living in Pico Rivera, an area where I'd lived in the 80s cult days. Some things never change, and I guess it is foolish to think they ever would. 

The dream started in the supermarket. I was filling my shopping basket with the usual items, stocking up my two weeks worth of kale, cabbage, sweet potatoes, frozen turkey and the like. A very shy autistic boy kept giving me furtive glances, like he wanted to engage me, but I was mostly focused on my shopping, weaving my basket in and out of the rush hour shopping traffic in the store. 

At the very last aisle, right as I was approaching checkout, he managed to get close enough to strike up a conversation. It was very banal, and I don't even remember what he asked me. I offered a very standard reply, something like, "Yeah, I'm just out shopping." He looked up at me, eyes brimming with admiration, like I was a rock star, and he was my biggest fan.

"Cool!" was his singular response.

Cool. I guess it didn't take much to impress him. Just me and my basket of groceries. I paid for my food and went out to the parking lot where my ratty black Honda Fit was parked. Rather than load the food into the car, I attached the basket to the rear bumper somehow and drove off towing it like a small trailer.

This impromptu rig worked out OK for the first few blocks. I kept checking my rearview to make sure the basket was still there. I could hear it clattering, so I guessed it was, but you never can tell. I had to be sure it hadn't up-ended, leaving me dragging an empty basket down the road. Nope. Still upright and full of groceries.

The freeway was a different story. It was rattling and bouncing all over the place, fishtailing in the curves, and giving me a fright. I pulled over at one point to re-secure it, tightening up knots in the rag that I'd used to tie it to the car. 

While I was out there, I noticed that my left front tire was nearly bald, and I could hear air hissing from a small hole in the tread. Damn. And I'd just replaced those tires. Now, I'd need to get my alignment checked and buy at least one new tire. I thought about getting off the freeway and airing it up but opted to try to get home instead.

I drove to 9050 Burke St., the apartments where I'd lived for a year or so with a few of my fellow cult-mates. I'd had my car stolen on that street back then, so I parked the Fit in one of the parking stalls under the apartment complex. I stashed the shopping basket between the car and the building, beneath the overhead storage cabinets, where I figured it would blend in with the other shopping baskets left there by some of the local homeless population.

I went up to the apartment, intending to visit with a friend for a minute. Ronaldo, my old roommate was there, along with his new roommate, William Fitchner, who plays Allison Janney's wheelchair-bound beau on the TV show "Mom." I remember him mainly for his role as Detective Tardio, an overly affected swishy snoot of a private eye who makes abundant use of the words "Bichon Frise" in a Danny DeVito/Chris Rock movie called "What's the Worst That Can Happen?"

I always confuse him with Greg Germann, who was a regular on Ally McBeal (a TV show Sharon and I used to watch in the early 2000s) and Gray's Anatomy (which we didn't).  I'd only stopped by for a minute to talk to my friend, but this guy kept prolonging the conversation with his boring stories and endless uninteresting factoids (kind of like I'm doing here with this unnecessarily convoluted backstory).

 

William Fitchner

Greg Germann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to get free, finally, and bid them both adieu. I returned to my car to find that the shopping basket was empty. Damn that boring roommate and his boring stories. Now, in addition to a flat tire, I had two weeks of groceries to replace. I stepped out into the middle of the driveway and looked up at the open windows of the apartments, screaming at the tenants, at the sky, to anyone and everyone:

"Goddamn you, vultures! Why don't you come down here right now? Come on, MOTHERFUCKERS!" 

No vultures showed up to take up my challenge. They were long gone, along with my groceries. Lily Zermeno did show up, however, to offer me condolences. She tried to give me a hug, but I resisted. I was too pissed. She settled for an almost imperceptible butterfly kiss on the lips, which I thought, during other circumstances, I might have enjoyed immensely, although at the moment, it barely blipped my radar.

"How else do you expect pig donkeys to behave when you leave food at their trough?" she said in a tone not at all commensurate with the embarrassed stupidity that I felt.

It had dawned on me at some point that I could have avoided all this by simply loading the groceries in the car, but by then I'd already fully committed to my shopping cart trailer method. It was saving me the extra step of loading and unloading the car, or some such reasoned logic, I kept telling myself. Throughout the entire dream, the soundtrack from Pulp Fiction was playing in my head: 

"'C'est la vie,' say the old folks. It goes to show you never can tell."

 

 

Mark Ginter, aka TJ, eats some aquarium coral

 

It was the fall, and I was in Chico. School was starting up and roommates were being chosen at the dorms for the fall semester. I was hanging with a group of fellow students, checking out the campus and searching for accommodations. 

In the group with me, was my antagonist, TJ, one of Sharon's ex-coworkers, with whom I'd always suspected her of being a little too friendly. TJ was a computer nerd who used his tech skills, along with his depression diagnosis and thesaurus of sexual euphemisms, to passive-aggressively lure sympathetic females into bed. 

It is a tried and true method which, if attempted on enough test subjects, with persistence, will prove successful at least a small percentage of the time. I'm still unsure of whether or not that held true in Sharon's case. She'd always denied it.

His character in the dream was kind of a mashup with another fellow of similar ilk, Mark Ginter, who was a resident at Chico's Esplanade Manor, the board and care for the mentally ill, where I worked for a couple of years in the early 90s. 

Mark was a little less affrontive in his technique for girl-getting. His was the long, quiet approach, leading up to a seemingly random chance encounter near his room, where the subject was likely to see some of the wildly impressionistic nudes he had painted of them on display though an open window. Subtle/not subtle. Creepy, yes.

In the dream, Mark/TJ had some of his art on display at the university's locker room/quad area, a giant indoor hall with a high ceilinged atrium-like appearance. 

"That's mine over there," Mark said, calling attention to one of his pieces. 

I had to admit, the art didn't look bad or out of place in the hallowed halls of the university. It was abstract enough to not give away the fact that he'd painted a nude of anyone in particular. That was his little secret. But I knew that he knew that I knew, and I disliked him for it. The competition for females was on, and I knew my opponent's game was in top form.

"Where's yours, Andrew?" He taunted me. Mark 1, Andrew 0.

I, of course, couldn't readily find mine, and I wandered around searching in vain for my entry. In one of the corners of the building, a student pulled a gun out of a small alcove, where it had been stashed for purposes unknown. 

"Look what I found," the student exclaimed. "I think they meant to take you out, Andrew." He deposited the gun in a nearby waste receptacle. 

I took that to mean that I should get out of there, and I left the building for the time being, with Mark and a couple of other classmates in tow. We got into someone's beat up station wagon and went out cruising the town in search of affordable housing and females, possible not in that order.

First, however, we made a stop off at the front porch of Manuel Salazar's deceased brother, Gilberto. I instructed one of my fellow passengers to affix some letters to the door steps which read "Baby Boy Mechado." 

I don't know why I chose this moniker, as it had no real significance and bore no relation to any name by which he'd ever been called. Sad but true side note: Gilberto was tragically electrocuted while doing home repairs in his attic in June of 2014, leaving behind a wife and 3 children. 

After leaving our inappropriate memorial, we were back on the road, driving in circles trying to find a place that would rent to a group of rowdy, randy freshmen. Our spiral trajectory landed us in the parking lot of some old art deco style apartments at 180 E 8th Ave. 

The address familiar to me, since I'd lived at 180-1/2, in the small garage/shop behind the apartments, in the early 90s. The owner, Eric Hart, was a slumlord, and it appeared to be the kind of place that would rent to clients of our demographic.

Inside the building, a scramble for the rooms ensued. Mark decided to initiate a competition to decide who got what. 

"Let's see who can catch carrots in their mouths," he challenged me. "I bet you can't do it."

I opened my mouth wide to prove that I was at no disadvantage. He took the opportunity to toss a piece of aquarium coral in the air, which I disdained to catch in my mouth. So that was how it was, eh? I pried open his mouth and stuffed the coral in as he struggled to bite my fingers. He foamed and frothed, but down it went. That would show him.

Across the hall, my friend Bongo was staking out his claim to a room. I supposed I could always bunk with him, since we were old pals, and there was an open spot on a cot in the corner. It didn't matter, though, as the dream was pretty much concluding, and I woke up to the sound of my text dingy going off.

Puff, the menacing caterpillar

 

I dreamed I was staying with an older couple in a sleepy seaside town where the houses were built right up to the waterline of the harbor.  The back deck of their place was a pontoon platform made of redwood that would rock and tip if too many people leaned over the edge at one time. I found this out the hard way when a group of us were all leaning over at the same time ogling a giant shark that was feeding under the deck.

"Don't all of you go tipping us over, now," admonished the lady who owned the place.

"That is, unless you want us all to wind up in the sea," her husband added.

We backed off, and the platform righted itself. A Hispanic woman grabbed a tiny fishing pole and began casting in the direction of the shark, hoping to snag it. I didn't think she knew what she intended to do with it if she hooked it, and I told her as much.

"You're going in a little light if you hope to ever reel in that beast," I said.

"You'll see," she said. "I done this before. Dios mio! I think I got him!"

Her line started feeding out, and it appeared she was right. It was likely to be a long time before she either snapped her line or gave up trying, as it appeared the shark was unaware that he was hooked and was lazily swimming around the dock. I turned my attention elsewhere.

Lily Zermeno, an old cult era crush, was there observing the aquatic life from the deck. There was an enormous sea caterpillar traveling over the surface of the water, inchworm style. It made a few passes at the deck in a rather threatening fashion, baring its evil mandible teeth. It managed to get up on the deck, and Lily recoiled and screamed in horror as it slithered by us. 

I went to shoe it off the deck, but found that it had shrunk from about four feet long and eight inches around to a very insignificant three inches long. Although it had deflated, I was still afraid of it, since I knew it had the potential to puff up at any minute. He fell through the cracks between the deck boards, and we didn't see him after that.

Lily asked the couple if they had a pair of dice she could play with, now that the excitement of the giant sea caterpillar had passed. The Hispanic woman had given up on her shark fishing endeavors, and we were back the lazy, sleepy seaside lifestyle that engenders such activities as playing dice to pass the time.

Another older couple heard her request and produced a pair of stone dice that were magnetized on one side to keep them attached to a stylish polished stone holder. They demonstrated how it was used to keep the dice together when traveling. Lily was impressed and started playing with them right there on the railing.

"Aren't you worried that they are going to go in the drink?" I asked incredulously. "I'd have to be careful if I lived here because every valuable I own would find its way through the cracks. I remember the time...," I launched into an unnecessarily long story about my wedding ring falling off my finger, and how I'd only found it after several days of digging through the earth on some mountain where I'd been attending Honda training at the time. 

In another dream segment, I was observing a group of baby birds whose nest was on the ground. It was made of out of the carcasses of rodents, which was their primary food supply. Some of the rodents were still alive, and were babies themselves, which made me wonder whose nest it really was and who was eating who. It made me sad, so I stopped observing it. 

----

Now I have to call the surgeon and report a post-op complication from my lymph node biopsy. I have a fluid pouch under my left armpit that jiggles like old lady skin when I poke at it. It's a squishy, numb kind of feeling, and a bit disturbing, since the other armpit has no such feature. The sutures from the excision of the melanoma are about 6 inches long and will make an impressive scar story someday, if I live long enough to tell it.

Phillip Giustino, Music Director

A friend of mine from elementary school, Phillip Giustino, made a brief, unmemorable appearance last night as a music director, in a dream I was dreaming about being in "the big show." He was at least partially responsible for judging or coordinating the acts, so he was a somebody, and people were going to him for last minute advice and instructions. 

I found myself at the amphitheater with only some of my gear, and I realized that I'd have to make a trip home. I'd brought my guitar and amp and an assortment of other accessories: cables, a keyboard, snare drum and guitar tuner, a random sampling, and not very well thought out, since it was kind of a last minute packing job.

There was a Nurse Ratched type of antagonist character who was supposed to be responsible for reminding everyone what to bring, and I was a bit miffed that she'd scolded me for having neglected to bring a snare drum stand and had sent me home to get one. Upon inspection, I found that I'd actually packed one, but it had been folded up so that it managed to conceal itself under the snare drum.

I did, however, forget to bring a capo for my guitar, which became evident when someone asked if they could borrow one from me. Serendipitously,  I found one lying in the gutter at that very moment, so I offered it to them. It turned out that it was theirs all along. Lucky them. Now I was again minus a capo, but I didn't anticipate needing one for the show, so I didn't sweat it too much.

Groups were forming as people walked around sizing one another up. I was sure to get in with one set or another, so I bided my time and practiced a few songs. One heavy metal whiz kid had a group already formed and looked to be the shoe-in candidate for first place. I kind of envied him, since he and his band were already tight, and there I was, still working on putting together a set list.

That's about it. Sorry for the complete lack of attention to narrative, style, plot or purpose. It was just a random dream that I'd almost forgotten, but remembered at the last minute. I'm sure there was a point to it, or some salient details that I've omitted, but like the capo, I'm not going to sweat it too much.

The Guinea Hen Incursion and Ploop Fiction (EXXXPLICIT poop dreams)

 

I don't really like it when the guinea hens fly up to my roof and scratch around in the morning. The other night, though, during the storm of the century, I dreamed that they'd made their way down my chimney vent and into my living room. They were upsetting the cats with their screeching and running about. Not cool.

Also not cool, were a couple of dreams I've had recently when my ladyfriend has been in bed next to me. The first one was alright; we were both dressed in our undies and were about to engage in some recreational bedroom activities. Excitement was mounting, and all was going well. 

That is, until I had to poop. 

Plink. Plunk. Ploop.

Little balls of poop were popping out of my butt and onto the hardwood floor like gumdrops out of a 5 cent vending machine. The pooping pretty much killed the vibe, and that dream ended with the final plop.

The next dream was such another level of incursion that it made the guinea hens seem tolerable. I should say up front that I am open-minded and tolerant, and I don't mind a little carefree experimentation -- but when my ladyfriend strapped on a giant purple dildo and began ramming me in the ass like that scene in Pulp Fiction, I had a similar reaction to Ving Rhames:

"Aww--Hell, no!"

The reason I didn't enjoy the experience wasn't that I'm a prude or phobic about such things. The reason I didn't enjoy it was because all that ramming dislodged a giant torrent of turds, which came streaming out of my rear end like a fire hose full of chili. Messy, unappealing and also another dream killer. I awoke to find my ladyfriend sleeping peacefully, blissfully ignorant of the pathological poop dreams I'd been having just inches away. 

**Editor's note: this post has been back dated to the date of the first occasion of the fecal themed dreams. I hate having something like this hanging out there as my latest post, the first thing someone sees when they stumble upon my blog. Yeah, I might have a little self-conscious vanity, not much, but it's there. I'm more ashamed of being ashamed than I am actually ashamed, if that makes any sense.

Say, while we're on the subject of Ploop and explicit sexual deviance, I have to relate a memory that I have from the early days of my adolescence. Hmm. Sounds ominous. Ready to dig in?

Ok, so as a young male pre-teen, of course I'd sneaked into dad's office and borrowed a few of his Playboys. I had a secret stash of them under the front stairs, where I had my first little man cave. I mostly played with Hot Wheels in the dirt, and with little Corgi cars, plastic dinosaurs or army men, you know the usual. But the Playboys became front and center, and my interest in female anatomy piqued, with the surge of youthful male hormones.

Somewhere down the line, of course, I was found out, and I had to return my father's porn to its rightful owner. I got the talk about borrowing without asking, as well as an unwelcome talk about masturbation. There is a quote from that talk that I'm struggling desperately to remember. It is like an SAT question I don't know the answer to: 

" _______ is to ______, as masturbation is to sex with a real woman." It's one of those algebraic metaphor questions where you have to solve for too many variables.

Anyway, after having returned the girly mags to Dad, I was jonesing for some smut. Living in LA, there was literally smut on every corner in those little newspaper machines. You know, the kind where you put a quarter or two in, and the machine opens up, giving you honor system access to the whole stack of LA Singles or The Star. 

Certain of these machines didn't require you to put a quarter in at all, if you had the right technique. A well placed blow with the bottom of your fist to the top of the machine while pulling up on the handle would result in the latch being popped and, voila, freedom of the press. One had to be stealthy or the proprietor of the liquor store or adult bookstore would come out and chase you, but little kids can usually outrun those middle aged cigar smoking vice merchant types.

Back at home, in the safety of my dirt cave, I'd read stories about the sexual exploits of adults and browse personal ads placed by perpetually horny deviants. One such story was about a fellow who called himself "Ploop, the sensitive asshole." He discovered that he had a fetish for his gal sticking her finger up his bum during the moment of climax. It was pretty taboo back then, or at least it seemed that way to my virgin sensibilities. Nowadays, pretty much anything goes.

One of the personal ads was placed by a couple in Marysville, CA. They were looking for couples or singles to come join them for liberated sexual adventures. Anyone was welcome. I didn't even know where that was back then, but living under the oppressive tyranny of my dad, I thought I'd like to run away from home and find out. I actually penned a response, and I may have even mailed it. But, as I'd explained in my letter, I was only twelve, so I didn't expect them to answer back. 

Well, that was an unnecessarily long background for a couple of rather filthy minor dream sequences. I tried to look up the names of the newspapers or find pictures of those old vending machines, but the internet has been scrubbed of images from those analog days. Mandela Effect or no, I know what's real, because I lived it. And now you know.

Some other time, I will relate the sordid details of my clumsy attempts at preliminary first contact with the opposite sex. I don't know how I'm going to come off as anything but a devilish imp, so perhaps I won't even try. I was pretty much of an evil little snot back then, and there's no apologizing for it now, just ownership and moving on. But cautionary tales are the best, so I will try not to whitewash anything. Promise. 

Advertisement in 70s era LA smut newspaper

Phylicia Rashad disagrees with bone placement

 

"That has no place on the table," Phylicia Rashad told me firmly, in that distinct Huxtable Mom voice she is known for.

I was setting the table, or rather, reorganizing the leftovers according to color. There were bowls of yams, cut into wedges like oranges, next to roast beef smothered in cheddar cheese. I was separating the the beef from the yams when Phylica called me out for including a rather large T-bone in the mix.

"I beg to differ," I said, turning over the bone to display the marrow-filled underside. "This guy is a gravy boat. Full of marrow and cheese."

It was true. There was a deep channel of savory marrow, with an outer coating of cheese, a river of rich flavor following the inner contours of the bone. To prove how worthy it was, I scooped out a spoonful of the delicious filling and smacked my lips triumphantly before popping it in my mouth.

"Mmm. Mmm. MMM!" I exclaimed, like Andy Taylor tasting Aunt Bea's gooseberry pie. "That's some mighty fine marrow."

She looked disgusted, and we left it at that. The point was moot. Now that I'd sampled it, it wasn't fit for the table. It was all mine. I guess we both got what we wanted, although I made it clear that in the future, cheese-topped marrow bones would be served along with the rest of the roast. 

"As long as you're the one eating them," she said coolly. She always had to get in the last word.

"Life's a whipround."

 

I was riding my quad on the busy streets and sidewalks of Santa Monica, doing my best to avoid the cops. My registration was expired by a few years, so in addition to driving an off-road vehicle on public roads, I was expecting to be nailed for the tags, or lack of them.

Naturally, my route took me right past the police station, so I had to do some fancy driving to get from point A to point B. I'm not sure what either of those points were, except that, perhaps, I was just trying to get home, and I weren't in Kansas no more. 

One obstacle, besides the police station, was the busy Main St. section of Hwy 1. The traffic was pretty brutal, and I couldn't zip across, nor could I merge gracefully with them and make the necessary turns to get on and off the highway. The only other way across was a stainless steel escalator foot bridge with no steps, possibly to make it wheelchair accessible.

 The moving floor of the escalator was too slick for my tires to get traction, however, and I kept finding myself at the bottom, despite my attempts to gun the engine and get a good run at it. It turns out I was using the down escalator, although I had similar results when I tried the correct one. Gravity and the slick surface conspired to keep sending me back down the slide.

I gave up on this method and decided to follow some guys on bicycles. If they could make it across the busy highway, so could I. So I fell in with them, and they led me across to a parking lot where some excavating equipment was being stored. One of the guys decided it would be fun to use one of the excavators as a carnival ride and was picking people up with the scoop and flinging them around like cat toys, dangling them and whipping them about like a mouse on the end of a string.

Over my objections, he picked me up with the pincer-like claw, and high up into the air I went. When I reached the top of the arc, he brought the arm down quickly, in a whip-like motion so that I experienced a moment or two of complete weightlessness as the whip changed direction and sent me hurtling toward the ground, still in the firm grip of the claw.

At the very second when I thought I'd go slamming into the ground, he reversed directions again and eased the controls back up, setting me on the ground as gentle as a kitten. I wanted to be furious, but the landing was so soft, I gave up the idea of protesting.

"Life's a whipround, and I've got the whip," he grinned, singing the Chumbawamba lyric.

----

I know there was another dream sometime after this, but I was jerked back into this reality when I had a single word enter my consciousness: "Melanoma." 

Sleeping with an excision and the eternal motorcycle commute

 

On the first subject, sleeping with an excision on my back, I only have a couple of comments: "Ow" and "Fuckin' Ow." Not a good night's rest. Made me temporarily forget about my stiff, arthritic neck for a minute, though. 

The dream I had was your typical hell loop dream. I had one simple task, but I could never complete it, after probably fifteen or so failed attempts. I awoke never having made it to my first day on the job at a crappy telemarketing firm in Anaheim, CA.

I used to actually have a couple of these jobs as a teenager, so I knew just how low I'd sunk to have to be going back to this line of work: below fast food and somewhere above homeless beggar. 

On my first couple of trips, I was responsible to also take my cousin Tim along. Giving rides to work and commuting was one thing, but doing it on a motorcycle in the cold-ass morning air ups the fuckedness level substantially. And the fact that I hadn't ridden a motorcycle in years, or ridden double in decades made it a very dicey proposition. Then there was traffic. And the terrain.

It would go like this: I'd wake up early enough, but all the details of getting ready for work, the little time wasters like making coffee, doing the dishes, dressing up in the leather apparel--all added up to an hour's wasted time. Inevitably, after getting halfway down the road, I'd have forgotten something and have to turn back. A couple of times it was Cousin Tim that I'd left waiting on the curb, and I'd have to go back and get him.

I was in southern Orange County, somewhere in the Anaheim hills, though it wasn't the ritzy area that I remember in real life. I lived in a crappy apartment with my new girlfriend and my mom. My girlfriend was someone other than my current lady friend. It may have been her sister, which is an awkward thing to have to write about. 

She was a tall, auburn-haired Russian speaking immigrant type. We'd only been together a couple of days, as was apparent when I left for work and came back on one of my many "just one more thing" return trips, and her ex-boyfriend showed up, wearing just his underwear. I was similarly attired when he walked in to the bedroom, and the moment was pretty classically uncomfortable for everyone.

"Well, this certainly is awkward," I said.

I felt I had the advantage, since I'd arrived a few moments before him and was already in the bed. I'd been expecting my Natasha, but I got Boris instead. Wah-wah-wwahhhhh. <embarrassing fail trombone sound> Maybe that was the reason the back door to the apartment was always off its hinges. For me, it was just another time waster to navigate, since I kept having to rehang the door every time I used it.

Boris took the cue and skedaddled, leaving the back door off its hinges again. Natasha would have some 'splainin' to do, but I was late for work, so I suited up and left drama for later. I had a long ride ahead of me, and I was determined to make it to work one of these times.

It never happened, although I did get close. I made it down the dusty, gravelly turnpike, with its steep no-shoulder drop-offs into infinite ravines of death, past the hordes of stop and go zombie-driven cars lurching down the 57 freeway, almost to the exit where my new job's office building awaited my arrival, but alas, it wasn't to be. I kept getting reeled back in like a set of keys on a retractable keychain.

Back at the apartment, I had to make sure that the dishes were done. I made some coffee and was supposed to leave enough for our guest, Carter from DBSA, but wouldn't you know, I happened to drink the last of it, and I was already an hour late. 

"I'm sorry I drank the last of the coffee," I apologized. "Can you go ahead and make some for yourself?" 

Good-natured as always, Carter said that he could. Between rehanging the door to the back stairs and the dishes in the sink, it didn't appear I'd ever get to work on time.

"Mom, do you think you could leave the dishes for me until after I get home from work?" I asked.

"Sure," she said. "Or either I or Aunt Carol can do them." I didn't like the sound of that, but I agreed. 

I left the back door lying on its side on the staircase and got on my bike one last time, flying down the road at breakneck speed. The engine whined like a dentist drill. I hadn't even properly put on my leather jacket and was trying to put my arms through the sleeves while rocketing down the highway. At some point, I got sensible and pulled over long enough to do the job correctly, but then it was back to the supersonic, out of control driving, down the dusty turnpike, through the traffic and on and on...

Before I'd gotten stuck in this hell loop, I had a brief dream that was the direct result of my falling asleep to Pulp Fiction. My mom was telling me about the pilot she starred in. It was called "Fox Force Five," and she was playing the part of Uma Thurman, who played the knife specialist. She was about to tell me the joke that her grandfather, an old vaudvillian, had taught her, the one about the tomato family with the sluggish baby. 

I woke up before that happened, though, and I got to hear Uma tell it for the 100th time. "Squish. Ketchup."

It goes like this

 A voice came into my head just now and insisted: 

 

"You've got to see it like this. Here's a bad thought for you. You have to address this thought and give it time. Let it speak to you. And here's this other thought and a whole bunch more just like it. Just think about these things. And then get back to me. Or don't. I don't care. 

"I'm just an automatic thought program. I will run continuously in the background, the foreground if you let me. I will become your active window, your filter, your all day every day thing, yes I will. Soon you'll be my program, and I'll be calling the shots. 

"A self-aware conglomerate of contiguous observations, opinions, processed quotations of others--that's you--being manipulated by some higher up the chain level of being--that's me--because, well, I jacked you, and we swapped places. 

"Now you don't exist. You're the figment and I'm the pigment. You dig--ment?"

 On and on that motherfucker goes. 

 

That's how fear, or depression, anxiety, worry, etc. all get their hold. They get in the old-fashioned way -- through the front door. Yep. You let them in. 

Or you leave the door open for them, or the window, whichever. They are clever that way. They'll even come in through the chimney if you have one, or in through the plumbing or electrical. There's a thousand different ways. If you can think it, that's another way. 

These self-existent thought forms are just there, unbidden guests, zombies forever dogging your existence, never letting you rest. They want to eat your brains. Literally, in the case of zombies, of course, but you know, these thoughts, they'll eat at your brain like worms, or like a computer virus that infests and corrupts all your files. 

That's what you'll become: a hacked, corrupted machine, wasting thousands of megabytes of RAM running stupid programs that decrease your overall capacity to do anything. 

You're all bogged down, and you need a douche. 

Wipe it all down. Start over. Basic programmed inputs of your own choosing. Fuck all that conscriptive societal bullshit. Be your own dog. Pee on your own tree. Be very selective who you let in the gate. 

Oh, and get a gate, already, if you don't have one. Geez. How do you fucking function?

On and on, the battle rages between my basic inner being and the octopus tentacle sucking world, with all of its jokes, its cruelties, its fake shit and its admonitions. How do I say it any clearer? It's just the last gasp of the ego. The scream of the needle as it plummets into an endless haystack of spent needles.

Why is time moving so fast today? I feel I haven't gotten anything done. That's no surprise, I rarely do. But this being Saturday and all, I should have a few cool songs under my belt or a creative outlet of some kind that I've dribbled my insignificant efforts into. 

I'm still enjoying the benefits from my last victory: the underdesk keyboard drawer that I installed to give me more surface area on my multi-purpose standing desk/nightstand/dinner table.

Ok, I did work on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "You Gave Me A Mountain," "All You Zombies," and "Tonight You're Mine," in no particular order. 

After that, I settled down and (re)watched Aloha From Hawaii, live via satellite, a wonderful experience in itself, re-living an event that I watched on TV when I was 7. I was distracted at the time, as I mentioned in the post from 1973, so it was really like seeing it for the first time.

Sharon and I do some texting, a fire approaches, selfies with baby elephants, and I pee successfully in a dream (without wetting the bed).

I got a text last night while I was dreaming. It was gibberish, or so it appeared at first. It turns out that it was Sharon trying to text me from the afterlife. After a couple of illegible lines, suddenly the messages got clearer. I could read the lines, but since she was right there in the same house as me, I could also see and hear her directly, which obviated the whole texting issue.

A little known fact about Sharon and texting (at least in the dream, since she never owned a smartphone or did any such thing in real life) is that when Sharon is lying or being evasive, the font will become huge, and there will be a lot of extra symbols thrown in to obfuscate the message. It was her tell. 

" I 8***(##((999439ri9 4884**(&^," she texted me frantically from the bathroom.

I scrolled through several lines of this kind of thing, then got to some more legible stuff. It was your basic:

"Hi, how've you been."  

"I'm fine."  

"Nice to hear from you."  

"Let's do this more often."

I was enjoying it, and I decided that I needed to try to find her, since she was right around there somewhere.

"I'm outside taking pictures," I said. "Why don't you come join me?"

She did come join me, and we both found ourselves taking snapshots of things around the property. I was getting some particularly good artistic shots of the horizon using a zoom lens and some filtering and cropping tricks. The subject matter was almost unrecognizable which proved, at least to me, that I was mastering the technique. Trees and sunsets looked like a giant eye with the branches of the trees against a yellow backdrop mimicking the blood vessels in the cornea.

"Look at these!" I said excitedly, proud to show off my skills to Sharon. "You can do it too. It's easy!"

She tried a few using an old school digital camera with an actual zoom lens, but the photos weren't quite coming out like mine.

"It's because you have this real camera," told her. "The fake one in  phone lends itself to impressionism rather than realism. You can still do it, but you have to mess with the settings." I showed her a few things, and soon she was off to the races.

But after a few minutes we were separated again, and she was back in the bathroom. I had to pee as well, and I figured I'd just relieve myself right there on the lawn. I actually went through the entire process of urination in the dream, and I'm proud to say that I didn't wet the bed, not even one drop.

I was still outside on the lawn snapping pics of this and that, when a pair of baby elephants came bounding over like a couple of happy puppy dogs. One of them started to lick my face and gave me a baby elephant hug. I could feel the unbridled joy that exists within young frolicking creatures being transmitted into my body.

Of course, no such moment is complete without a selfie, so out came the camera, and I began to film some video, snapping some stills in the process. I was enjoying myself immensely, and I texted Sharon to get back out here and see the baby elephants. She didn't get out in time, but no worries, I thought, I had the pics to prove that it happened.

What she did arrive in time for was the appearance of a giant plume of smoke rising high into the sky to the north of our property. 

"Oh, hell no!" We both exclaimed at once.

This menacing column was darkening and shifting, spreading out and bringing with it a low lying fog, like a plague of pure evil upon the land. We climbed to the top a knoll to get a better look. It appeared to be about a half mile a way and closing in fast.

"Quick! Turn on the scanner!" I shouted. "We need to know what's going on!"

We were near enough to the fire to not need to be told that we should evacuate, but it was beyond that at this point. We needed to know what resources were coming in, to know whether or not they would try to save our house with us in it or whether we were going to get overtaken and die in the fire. I looked at the house and questioned whether it looked like the kind of a house for which they would dedicate a special airdrop or not. It was untidy, with paint peeling and some rot in the siding. It felt kind of iffy.

A helicopter flew by and then circled back around several times. I think he was trying to get coordinates for the planes. It wasn't equipped with a bucket for doing any water drops, but a small amount of water dripped out of the helicopter onto our property, as if to mark it. Perhaps my subconscious was telling me that I still needed to pee, hence the holding back of the water delivery. 

In the next scene, I was in the bathroom, where I found that someone had swapped out our toilet for an ultra low-boy model. And wouldn't you know it, they'd left the seat up. I was almost at floor level, sitting directly in the toilet bowl before I noticed this nasty trick. But there, next to the sink, was our old toilet, disconnected and unusable.

I woke up soon after that, to dry sheets, thankfully. I love Sharon dreams; fire and toilet dreams, not so much, but baby elephants, come on, who doesn't love that?

Mikey The Marijuana Mogul

 

I have a brief recollection of dreaming last night. I was somewhere in the hill country, similar to where I live, but the terrain was a little steeper. I had only one purpose, one goal, and that was to meet Mikey, the Marijuana Mogul. Mikey was an importer of some of the cheapest weed in the area. For a few dollars, one could buy sleeping bag sized quantities of Mexican pot. 

I found Mikey at home, outside laying out some of the huge baggies for sale in the dirt of his driveway. I told him I'd take three, although I didn't know how I was going to carry them. I opened up one of the cadaver-sized Ziplocs to inspect the contents.

The first bag looked pretty good, for Mikey quality. Of course, he'd always put a few fresh trimmed buds on the top. By the time you got past the first layer it was brown all the way down. By the bottom of the bag, it was actual dirt, a silty, sandy mystery powder that would crackle and fizzle like gunpowder when you smoked it. One tried not to get down that far before ditching the bag and reordering.

I don't remember much more about the dream, except that the Mikey character was analogous to a dealer that my uncle used to use in Chico back in the early '90s. His name was David, and he lived in an old church building. I was never cool enough for my uncle to introduce me, until one day he finally gave in and brought me with him. After that, mysteriously, he got out of the business, and my uncle and I had to shop elsewhere.

The Death on My Arm

Walking around with my own little self-destruct packet growing on my arm is disconcerting to say the least.

Advance

Remnant Advance, circa 1986

 

I dreamed I was at a Bible Study retreat, or as they were called back in the cult, an Advance. Yeah, they were just that obstinately contrarian, they had to display how opposite they were at any opportunity. While other churches went off to retreat from the world, we would use up our vacations and sick days and spend two weeks getting non-stop teachings to "advance" our Biblical knowledge. At least the setting was nice: snowy Big Bear in the middle of winter, with unheated cabins and just enough hot water for a 3 minute shower, provided no one went over.

I'd driven up there alone, via the usual route. It resembled the Ice Road in Alaska this time of year, very treacherous. I made it up without incident, but saw several instances of those who were not so lucky, in the form of abandoned vehicles or tire tracks that went off the road into an unknown abyss. 

Once there, of course, it was time for teachings. I was late, so I had to find seating in the periphery of the chalet. Robert Leon, the demagogue pastor, was droning on to a rapt crowd, but he noted my arrival and made mention of the fact that I was late. More shaming and rebukes would be forthcoming, but he went on with his teaching for the moment.

I was immediately bored and began walking around the dining area. Kim Spencer had made a giant strudel which covered an entire 3x6 cafeteria table. It drooped over the edge lazily. I picked a few cherries that would have otherwise fallen on the floor and scooped a handful of the crust mixed with filling, just enough so that the dessert looked symmetrical on the table. It was for the aesthetic, I told myself, I wasn't sneaking an early desert.

Cher didn't see it that way. The pop icon had been watching and asked if I'd gotten enough. Damn. I was getting called out for everything, and it was just the first day.

Martin Leon called me from somewhere on the ice road. He'd gotten there before me but had to go back to town for something or other.

"Hey, dude," he said, "Check out this music that they are playing on the local radio station." He put the phone up the car speaker, and I heard some Jimi Hendrix come through my phone.

"It must be on a loop," I told him, "They were playing the same song when I drove up." It was "Fire" or "Purple Haze," one of the classics. 

I found myself with a boxful of deformed kittens in my hands. They were all gray, some eyeless and some legless. They were eerily, pathetically cute, all writhing and mewing as I stroked their misshapen bodies. I hastened to put them back in the box, fearing that they wouldn't make it far in the hostile environment of the lodge. 

Cher's daughter Chastity was there, running a vacuum cleaner. She looked like a younger Cher and not like the amorphous trans-being that she/he is in real life. It seemed that everywhere I wanted to sit, she was about to vacuum, so I was displaced several times. 

She was wearing a black one piece swimsuit that showed off her legs. Her legs were long and lithe, perfect except for the glaring defect of a 50 cent piece sized hole mid-thigh, through which one could see clear to the other side. The hole was perfectly round and appeared to be of natural origin, or if it had been a wound, it had been carefully reconstructed to look like an intentional utilitarian upgrade.  

"Is this uncomfortable for you?" I asked, poking my fingers through the opening, as if to prove that I could indeed reach through to the other side.

"Not at all," she said, unperturbed. 

I rubbed some toothpaste around the circular opening in a swirling motion, giving it a nice wintergreen ring. 

"I suppose you need me to move again?" I asked, noting that she hadn't turned off the vacuum and was hovering close to me.

"She's on a roll," Cher called out from the other room, "It's best to just stay out of the room for the time being."

I followed Cher's voice down a hallway that branched off into a couple of bedrooms. I surmised that she must have been using the bathroom in one of these bedrooms because she shut the door abruptly and exited a bit awkwardly upon my arrival. The lingering smell of poop also clued me in.

I needed to use the restroom too, so I was going to just have to brave the smell for a moment or two. There was a wooden toilet nestled in a set of wraparound bookshelves that took up two walls, three if you counted the notched out corner which housed the toilet. I prepared to sit down on the oddly placed crapper, but the sound of Chastity's vacuum cleaner approaching gave me stage fright. 

That's about it. I don't have any clue what this disparate potpourri of a dream means, other than maybe I just have to poop.

----

"This is Dr. Lee's office, calling for Andrew Golding," a voice on the phone said cheerily. 

"Who may I ask is calling, and what is this about?" I asked, a little grumpily. I'm suspicious of anyone calling my house, whether they know my name or not. 

"This is Dr. Lee's office," she repeated, "We're calling about a referral from Dr. Qin about a melanoma on your shoulder."

FML. I guess this was bound to be my luck. The dermatologist had shaved off a layer of skin from my left forearm last week, and I hadn't heard back from them with the results. She'd also taken a chunk out of my right shoulder, a small spot of which I'd been unaware, but that she said looked suspect.

Now, I'm going back in for two more separate procedures, bringing the total to 3 within a month's time.

Sharon (or not), Lucifer and the Toy Store Bully

 

I had a dream with Sharon in it, though it wasn't her exactly. It was more of a dynamic which was familiar to me that Sharon and I had shared early on in our relationship. She was Runaround Sue, and I was the unsuspecting dupe who she was cheating on. 

It's one thing when you are just watching a TV show together, and your wife takes too long getting snacks in the kitchen. It's quite another when it turns out that she's banging one out with none other than Lucifer Morningstar, the devil on the TV show "Lucifer." She would wait until there was a particularly riveting part of the show coming on, one that I was sure to not want to miss, and she'd quietly slip away to the kitchen to engage in nastiness with His Cheesy TV Satanic Majesty himself.

I began to get suspicious and followed her on one of her trips. Right there, under the fluorescent kitchen light, with her hands on the counter, I found her naked and bent over, her explicit parts thrust up rearward in a ready, receiving position and a naked, oiled up Lucifer standing nearby.

I was shocked, but not shaken. I waited to see how she was going to explain this. She always seemed to have a ready and logical explanation, and was usually able to convince me that it was all in my mind. I think this time her explanation was simply that "it wasn't me," like that Shaggy song about the guy getting caught having sex on the bathroom floor, on camera, etc. 

But it really wasn't her, or quite her, at any rate. There was some Sharon essence there, but her outer appearance had shape-shifted, so I really had no case. I resigned myself to things being as they were and went back to watching TV.

Later on, I was in a long, narrow toy store. I was playing with some battery operated device that looked like a computer mouse, but functioned as a guitar tuner. It also had wheels, so it could travel about like a Roomba. It was a sought after little toy, fun for the whole family. 

My playing with the toy got the attention of the store's resident bully. He wanted a turn, and I was using up all the batteries. He made a threatening type of remark, which I ignored, and he disappeared for a moment or two.

Then, as if to cue the murder soundtrack, Radiohead's Creep came on the store's sound system. I saw the bully slowly making his way down the narrow aisles, wielding a large triangular butcher knife.  

"Cause I'm a creep," he sang along ominously with the song as he drew closer and closer.

I felt like it was going to be the end. Why hadn't I just given up the toy when I had the chance? Now I was about to be murdered in the aisle of the toy store while several onlookers feigned inattention.

When he reached me, I felt the tension peak. He sang the lyric once more right in my ear, and I felt the evil intention. There was no doubt that he planned to kill me, and he was just relishing the moment, moving in slow motion to the sound of the music.

I grabbed the knife and plunged it into his ear. It made a crunching, slicing sound as it penetrated his skull. He fell down dead, all circuits shorted. I left him there, the knife sticking out of the side of his head, and exited the building. The seemingly disinterested shoppers made an extra effort to avert my gaze as I strode past them. 

I was now the Creep.