Pill bottle blues

 

Uncle Steve should never leave me alone with his stuff. The last time he did that, I wound up rearranging his room, aided by some hookers he'd paid to look after me. This time, I wound up eating all his frozen food and swallowing a whole bottle of Allegra, which I spent the rest of the dream trying to dislodge from my throat. I'd swallowed the whole 300 pill prescription, bottle and all, and I could hear the pills rattling around in the container, lodged somewhere in my chest cavity.

"Where's my burrito?" Steve asked as he walked in the door, his new girlfriend at his side.

"I ate it," I croaked. "Right before I swallowed a whole bottle of Allegra. I need to google 'effects of swallowing 300 Allegra' and also 'is a plastic prescription container digestible?'"

He just looked at me with that look he reserved for idiots, the look of disdain, annoyance and general disgust with existence, aka, his basic resting face. 

Later, I was in my mansion in the foothills near a college town. I lived in a verdant, upscale neighborhood, well treed and private, but still, those college kids got around, so security was a concern. On this particular day, I caught a kid riding his bike around on my property who had no good cause for being there. The only reason I knew he'd been there was the presence of some reflective stickers that he'd dropped on the ground outside my front door.

"Are these your stickers?" I said to him before he could get far.

"Umm...no?" he said, clearly searching for an answer that wouldn't incriminate him.

"Well, fine," I said. "In that case, I'm keeping them. My bike needs some reflective stickers. And by the way, you're trespassing."

I began to discuss, with this kid who could have been a potential thief, the need for smart doorbells that sent emails, and he agreed that they would be a good idea. I mean, what if you just didn't hear the doorbell or were in the other room? I could really see the marketing potential. I think I'll google it when I'm done transcribing this dream. (Spoiler alert: anything I can possibly dream of has already been invented and is available on Amazon.)

Anyway, in the midst of all this pill bottle swallowing and million dollar patent pondering, I had employed Bob Hansell to paint my living room. It was white, and I wanted to paint it--white. How imaginative, I know, but you've got to go with a proven winner.

"What's all this crap on my bike tire, Bob?" I said as I wheeled my bike across the carpet and saw a giant patch of white appearing on its surface with each rotation.

Bob was no longer there, so I had to piece together the possible scenario in his absence. What I figured was, Bob had cleaned his paint rollers on the white carpet, thinking that it would blend in since it was the same shade. I felt the carpet, and it was indeed wet with paint, and now my bike tire had become a paint roller, tracking paint into the rest of the house, making a broken line reminiscent of those down the middle of a highway.

At least that would allow for passing, I thought to myself. No one was ever around to hear my jokes, so the idea of people passing each other in the house became less funny the more I thought about it. I decided to go for a walk in the rain, along the soggy hillside near the college. I took an air mattress with me for some reason, maybe for a security blanket, I don't know. This was my air mattress, and it was all I needed.

When I got to the college, I found the embankment leading up to the campus had the perfect angle and moisture content for doing some grass sliding. Although there was a small gravel component, the grass was slippery enough to compensate. I took a few test slides and found that I could direct the air mattress up and down the face of the hillside like I was surfing a giant wave. Most satisfying, I thought, and I contemplated bringing it up to the college board as a Phys-Ed activity.

Unfortunately, the gravel punctured my air mattress, and by the time I was done sliding, it was completely deflated. I rolled it up and headed for home, feeling a bit deflated myself. I still had the prescription bottle somewhere inside my digestive track, and I'd probably need X-rays and a surgical procedure to extract it. The dream had become a loop at this point, and I came back to my house to find the trespasser, the reflective stickers and the painted carpet scene already in progress.

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Addendum: Two days ago, my neighbor Stan needed a ride to pick up his car from a mechanic, so I drove him. Today, he emails me and tells me that he is as sick as a dog and has tested positive for Covid. It was only a five mile drive, but the windows were rolled up, and neither one of us were wearing masks. Needless to say, I'm feeling every ache and twinge as a possible sign of infection, and I'm anxiously awaiting day 5, so I can take a home test. Perhaps there is a connection between this and my dream about having a pill bottle stuck in my throat, I don't know.