Cat-killer Karens on the attack, and William O. turns diners against me

I was at a steakhouse, or possibly a Home Depot, not sure which, as the vibe was similar, but the parameters kept shifting. There were wood floors, a velvet rope queue and lots of people with an impatient, angry disposition. Within minutes of entering the building, I encountered a couple of the worst of these in the form of two angry Karens, setting the tone for the rest of the dream.

I overheard two ladies (I will probably have to rescind that descriptor, but we have to start somewhere) discussing plans to kill cats. They were discussing atrocities in such a gleeful, dismissive manner that I felt I had to speak up.

"Animal cruelty is a crime," I said, raising my voice so that a few others in the line took notice.

 "Look at that one," angry Karen #1 sneered to her friend, a diminutive trench coat clad troll, with tortoise shell glasses and a bowl cut that aptly framed her perpetually scowling face. 

Karen #1 proceeded to launch a barrage of insults directed at snowflakes, liberals and anyone with a hint of compassion, but the target of her immediate attack was me. I felt the energy of the crowd become uneasy, as if they didn't know whose side to take in the developing conflict.

Karen #1 then produced two knives and hurled them with such precision and force that they stuck into the wood floor between my feet. I began to fear for my life, as it didn't appear that the crowd was going to come to my aid.

I hastened to the checkout area, now more identifiable as a Home Depot, where several people were finalizing their purchases. Ks #1 and #2 had followed me and appeared to have rearmed themselves with additional cutlery, which they brandished while making threats promising mutilation and torture. 

I am embarrassed to say that I clung to a small child at this point, momentarily using the youngster as a human shield. Realizing that this was wholly unconscionable even in a dire dream emergency, I released the child and made my way through the checkout without further incident.

Next, I found myself in an actual steakhouse, sitting at a table, family style, with William Oca Helton, AKA Uncle Bill. A lifelong conservative, he'd always been supportive of me, despite my hippy mom's leanings. As we finished our breakfast, however, his mood began to shift, and I felt a wave of disapproval sweep through the restaurant.

He was smiling as he raised his two middle fingers in my direction, and the rest of the diner followed suit. I got up from the table, returning the gesture and uttering the foul words associated with the two finger salute.

"Well, fuck you too, I guess," I said as I walked out. "All of you." 

I didn't regret giving the finger to a room full of diner patrons. I was sad about Bill, though. That one hurt.

Nondescript dream quickly turns ugly

I was in Seattle with a group of younger people. I don’t know how we hooked up, but apparently, we had some history.

I rode my bike to the shed where a meeting was going to be held. Only three or four of us would meet at a time. We made it a practice to hold drills, a kind of impromptu game of hide and seek, keeping our location a secret even from other members.

“Get your bikes into the shed!” the group’s defacto leader shouted at me and another guy. “And turn on the sprinkler to make it look like we’re not here!”

We rushed to do as he said, but it was too late. Several other group members had spied us. Now we would have to move the meeting to one of the member’s houses, which was not ideal in the cause of secrecy. For my part in the lapse of security, I was told to wait outside.

Looking in at the group from the front porch, I was singled out by the leader, a pudgy kid who seemed to remember me from somewhere.

“I don’t like that one,” he said flatly, instructing the others to make sure I stayed on the porch.

“What did I ever do to you?” I protested.

I got the vague sense that this was an old elementary school beef come back to haunt me, and I quietly accepted my fate. Ultimately, it didn’t matter because the meeting had to be moved yet again, this time to an outdoor venue in the park.

My friend E____ was with me now, and we were about to watch one of the group members make a speech. Just then, an ambulance drove up and parked nearby. Some men jumped out and presented something akin to a gray nightie to my friend.

At first it seemed that she had just been chosen to receive a gift of the free article of clothing, but it was a ruse. As soon as she got to the front of the crowd, they grabbed her, wrangled her into the dress and then threw her into the ambulance. Atop the back of the ambulance, David Lee Roth leered at me evily as they sped away, with me running after them, screaming.

My first thought was that this was some kind of intervention by her parents to get her to come back home and live with them. But given the political climate, I began to suspect a larger plot. She was the only young woman of prime breeding age in the group, and this place was looking more and more like the dystopian Gilead of the Handmaid's Tale.

Work related woes, the paddleboat kiss and Shayla's shameless swingdance proposal

 

Shayla and I had a little something going on. It wasn’t much, I thought: a wink once in a while, a conversation that lasted a little longer than a neighborly hello. I'd never given it much thought because she was extra nice to everyone, and I was nothing special. Additionally, I'd just missed another day of work and had failed to call in sick, so I was certain that I was going to get fired.

“How late is too late to call in, do you think?” I asked Jeff. (Jeff Daniels, the actor, was now pumping gas, but he always had a pretty good word of advice for anyone who asked.)

He looked at his watch. “It’s 2:30 p.m. I think, if you haven’t called in yet, you’re cooked.”

I had been walking around with a sense of dread all morning, and his words did nothing to alleviate this. I began to imagine the radical shift in my identity that would occur upon firing. I would be a pariah, and I certainly wouldn’t be getting asked out by any pretty ladies like Shayla.

As I walked past the lake, I saw John Travolta and Greg Kinnear in a paddle boat. This paddle boat was constructed in such a way that both men faced opposite directions, so they were only capable of traveling in a circle. John became frustrated with this arrangement and pushed Greg over backwards. After Greg righted himself, John Travolta looked him in the eye and gave him a full kiss on the lips. Mr. Kinnear appeared startled, though not entirely displeased.

I turned away and walked down a dusty street where some of the local gals were sitting on a bench awaiting partners for a swing dance. I saw Shayla Sullivan, a hometown hero and beauty queen, sitting among them chatting. As I walked by, I accidentally kicked her water bottle and bent down to pick it up. In the process of handing it to her, I did a little stutter step, almost falling over into her lap. I righted myself by grabbing her hand, which she interpreted as an invitation to dance.

“No, no, no!” I protested. “ I didn’t… I mean I do… But I’m no good at this.”

Dammit! Why hadn’t I kept up my practice of that little swing dance formula --  “one, two, three AND...” --  that I had tried to learn to ingratiate myself to my wife and recently tried to pick up in hopes of swaying the affections of my good friend E_____?  Shayla would find out soon enough that I was a fraud and could not do this dance well enough to impress anyone.

She also did not know about the impending firing, or at least she pretended not to, as she smiled up at me from the bench. She was instantly on her feet, and there we were, dancing in the street. Or should I say, she was dancing in the street, and I was doing my best not to dance on her feet to the rhythm of one, two, three AND… I still can’t remember how it goes.

“Do you wanna come up to my room?” she asked breathlessly, after just a moment of this awkward dance.

Of course I did, but I was still thinking about my impending firing and how it was going to affect everything. I felt disingenuous for accepting her proposal. I tried to make some kind of a confession as she led me up the stairs past her mother’s scrutinizing glare.

On our way down the hall, I was greeted by the family dog, who was a lot friendlier than Mom, and we went into her room and shut the door. Shayla and I went in, I mean. The dog remained at his post in the hallway.

“I’m gonna win you,” she said determinedly, and she began to strip.

“But you’ve already won me over,” I said, recalling the words of an Alanis Morrisette song as I unzipped my hoodie and flung my beanie on the couch.

I was feasting my eyes upon her in such a fashion as one does at these times, drinking in the moment that I feared would be all too short. I was not wrong, and per standard operating procedure, I awakened into this lonely bedroom with my usual feelings of disappointment and anxiety.