Monday, April 11, 2022

The chef's discount


I dreamed Uncle Steve, my Mom, my stepmom Gere and I were staying at a beachside condo. It was another all white motif: white, furniture, carpet and appliances, but with a tinge of gray from too many years of whisking cobwebs away without ever washing or painting anything. Other things were wrong with the place too, a few loose moldings here and there, door locks that didn't work and carpet that came pre-loaded with beach sand. 

"It's a steal," said Uncle Steve, slyly, "We are getting the 'Chef's discount.'" My mom eyed him suspiciously, but remained silent.

I took the opportunity to make even more of a mess of the place by opening all the drawers and cabinets to see what was in them and leaving all the items on the floor, much to my stepmom's chagrin. I caught a glimpse of the ire on her face, and it told me that I'd better start cleaning the place up, Cat-In-The-Hat quick-like, or I'd be sleeping outside.

"I'll get this place cleaned in a jiffy," I promised, but her countenance didn't relent. She had resting bitch face from years of putting up with my shit.

Feeling the burn from her laser eyes, which kept following me as I fumbled about with the silverware, I was unable to complete any of the cleanup. I kept starting one thing or another, then she'd look at me, and I'd get so spooked that I'd forget what I was doing and move on to the next project. It was no wonder she was so frustrated with me. I was like a distracted puppy that simply wouldn't get down to business.

I went into one of the bathrooms, but finding it had no toilet paper, I went into the next to procure some. Steve was lounging in a bubble bath.

"Is it OK to steal some TP?" I asked, still cowering a bit from Gere's withering glare earlier.

"Sure, dude," said my uncle, nonchalantly grabbing a roll with his wet hands and tossing it to me.

I caught the roll and took off like a running back, getting to the other bathroom in the nick of time. Damn these bathrooms and their non-functional door locks, I thought to myself as I dropped trow and hurriedly got down to business. 

I decided that perhaps a trip to the store to restock our barren pantry would assuage Gere's anger with me, so I took the family dog with me to pick up some supplies. Things didn't go as planned, however, and the overzealous Irish Setter took off after some people whose shopping cart contained the motherload of all meat purchases. I found him at the checkout counter, where he had somehow gotten rung up and put on the conveyor with all the meat. I grabbed him and apologized to the customer, but the checkout lady told me that I would now be responsible for the purchase of all that meat.

"Very well, then," I said, and I paid for the meat. Perhaps a giant barbecue would get me back in my stepmom's good graces.

I came back to the apartment to find that we'd been moved from our substandard room to an even crappier one. This new suite had a broken stove. So much for my barbecue idea. Steve was out "putting something in a pipe somewhere," so I went down to the front desk to complain about the room, but there was a long line to see the attendant. I took a number and put it in a plastic shopping basket, one of those little hand-held jobs that you use when you don't really want to buy that much at the store, and waited for my turn.

"I guess I need to register a complaint," I said, depositing the ticket in my empty basket and leaving it on the counter. "Our rooms were switched, and we have one without a stove."

The owner came out and addressed me directly:

"We are comping the room," he said with a wink. "We are giving you the chef's discount, because you are a chef. And don't worry, we'll have the new stove in in time for dinner." 

Leave it to my uncle to somehow get a free room by telling the hotel staff that I was a famous chef. I wondered what miracles I was going to have to perform to convince anyone that I wasn't a complete fraud.

Later in the dream, I was walking on a road near a cliff. It reminded me of Pearson Road in Paradise, only there was a cliff on one side of it where sea erosion had eaten away the shoulder. I had to walk in traffic to avoid falling off. The town must have been aware of the problem, since the lines on the road were painted around the portions of the road that had fallen away, like a body is chalk outlined on the pavement at a crime scene.

To make matters worse, the road got very steep, very quickly, and I found myself struggling to remain upright. At the peak of the hill, the angle was actually over-vertical, and I had to grip the pavement with both hands like a mountain climber, my feet dangling under me. I imagined that cars had to get a good running start at this hill, or they would just tumble backwards. It was too much for me, however, and I gingerly eased my way back down the hill, narrowly avoiding a nasty slide down the asphalt.

In another part of the dream, I was riding Steve's motorcycle down a similarly dysfunctional rural road adjacent to a creek. The road kept getting narrower because the water was high, and it disappeared at some point and got replaced by a walking trail too narrow and rocky for the motorcycle to ride on. I got off and started pushing, slogging my way down a trail that looked like it had been paved with one long poop. I wondered what manner of cement truck could have delivered such a large, clearly defined turd. It was seemingly endless, and I soon was considering crossing the creek, high water be damned.

I managed to get out of that situation, how I don't know. But the next thing I knew, I was back in the city, walking the family dog again. The dog was a handful, and I kept having to correct him with jerks on the leash. I looked into his eyes, and I noticed that it wasn't the Irish Setter from earlier. It was Whiskey, my deceased shepherd cross, somehow youthful again. I eased up on the corrections and decided to just let him sniff whatever he pleased. He'd been a good dog, and I regretted the turn his life had taken during his final years. 

That's about it. Pretty patchy and uncoordinated, I know. Perhaps a shrink can unpack the subtle themes someday. For now, I have to get up and pee, and then on with my day: red light therapy, exercise, breakfast and gardening.

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