The Secret Magazines Dream
I was in my mid-forties. My wife and I had decided to clean out and organize a home office space. It seemed to be a semi-detached garage. The cinder-brick walls were pale yellow, a broken concrete and dirt floor was underfoot, and there were several large windows.
We’d lived in this place for a while, but several new people had moved in, and we were becoming acquainted with other neighbors. The office had a very large bathroom, also painted yellow, with a single naked bulb hanging down in the middle. I was in there with six neighbors, all men, with the door shut, discussing people we knew in common. One very tall man — I came up to his chest — said, “Hey, do you know Hylton?” I gleefully replied, “I know Hylton, really tall guy, right?”
I asked everyone if they would leave the bathroom, questioning why we were all in there. After that, I returned to the office. The office had a pale-yellow desk and matching file cabinets and printer stand. They could have been painted from the same can of paint as the walls. I began emptying all the drawers. I was hurrying because I’d hidden Playboy Magazines from my wife in some of the drawers. I didn’t want her to find them. After emptying the drawers, I frantically raced around, trying to find a new place to hide them. What to do! What to do! I could hear her talking in the other room.
She came in. I shoved the magazines into a box and shoved it under the desk. She said, “Oh, you’ve already emptied all the drawers. Good. Let’s go through everything and decide what to keep and throw away.”
I said, “I already did that. We just need to put things away. I can do that by myself. You can go do other things.”
But she disagreed, insistently she was staying there.
A man arrived in the garage next to the office. White, in his mid-forties, he had curly coal-black hair with a matching thick beard and was wearing a blue ball cap and matching overalls. I know this because I could see him over like a sort of divider. I asked, “Who are you?”
My wife said, “This is so and so. I hired him to help us clean and organize.”
I replied, “I have this handled. We don’t need any help.”
But she ignored me, going into the garage area with the man to talk about what he could do to help.
Okay, she was out the room. I resumed my attempt to hide my magazines. There were only four, so I thought it shouldn’t be hard. Then I thought, I haven’t looked at these in years, why do I want to keep them? I also questioned, why should I have to hide them from her? But I knew the reason was that she hated Playboy because of how it sexualized and objectified women.
I quit trying to hide them. My wife entered, saw the magazines, and threw a fit. I told her I was throwing them away, but she ranted about me having them and hiding them. Shrugging that off, I went outside to check on the cats. I had two young ones and wanted to ensure they were okay. I heard a dog barking. Looking over a hedge down into the neighbor’s yard, I saw a large German Shepherd running around. Well, I needed to keep the cats in, then!
I decided to cross the street to get my mail. The street was just a narrow dirt lane but my mailbox was on the other side. A middle-aged white woman was coming down the street on a blue bicycle. I waited for her to go by, but she just drew up and stopped right before reaching me. I was incredulous; she was blocking traffic, but seemed totally indifferent. After a moment, she shifted her bike to go to the mailboxes, the same ones where I was going. A large gray truck was waiting for her to go by, and several other people were waiting, too. But she just did what she wanted, oblivious to what was going on around her. Indignant, I crossed the street to the mailbox. As I reached the other side, she pedaled away.
Dream end.
Whether Floof
Whether Floof (floofinition) – An indecisive animal.
In use: “Many people find their pets are whether floofs when inclement weather strikes, as the pets ask to go out, then see the bad weather, return back in, and then try another door, going back and forth, trying openings, wanting to be out, wanting to stay in. Some people even say that their whether floof is a weather floof.”
A Traveling Dream
I was a young man, with my extended family. Cousins, including three deceased members, were there, along with aunts and uncles, and my parents (who, in RL, divorced when I was young).
We were ‘getting ready to go’. Where we were heading wasn’t properly defined. We’d had a reunion party the night before. The next day found the place trashed. Cans of beer and beer kegs were in the bathrooms. I was walking around, trying to make sense of things. We had two buildings divided by a parking lot where we were staying. Each of those buildings had a large game room with several bathrooms off of them. But beer was everywhere, mostly domestic brands like Schlitz, Miller’s, Stroh’s, and Buds, drinks from my childhood. I was laughing at that beer selection, questioning them, “Couldn’t we have done better?” They accused me of being a snob. We laughed about it all.
But the chaos annoyed me. We were due to leave soon. No one seemed ready, and they didn’t seem to care. Two vehicles were there for our travels. Both were sort of RVs. One was black and the other was red. Polished and shiny, they looked like wingless jets with wheels. People were filling them up with things they were taking. Checking it out, I proclaimed, “You’re trying to take too much. We’re not going to have any room for people.”
I went down into a game room to use the bathroom and encountered my father. He was in a jovial mood. I told him that I wanted to use a bathroom and was going to move the beer out of there so I could and asked if he would help. He just laughed and opened a beer. I said, “You’re having a beer now? But we’re getting ready to go.”
I became a little annoyed then and went back to the red and black RVs. An aunt came out, chastising everyone that we need to get a move on. I told her, “I know, I’ve been trying to get them organized.” Cousins started piling into the vehicles. I asked, “Who’s driving?” Aunt P answered, “You are.” I replied, “But I don’t even know where I’m going.”
She said, “Of course you do. You always know.”
Dream end.
Flooftirement
Flooftirement (floofinition) – 1. Withdrawing from activities, work, or social commitments to spend time with animals.
In use: “After more wearying, depressing news, he went into flooftirement with his cat, dog, and a book, figuring the world could go on without him but he couldn’t go on without them.”
2. An animal’s withdrawl or change of status from a working position or occupation.
In use: “He’d been a working dog, a service dog which gave his person needed emotional support, and when she passed on, he gratefully accepted flooftirement to a quiet home.”
The Cycles of Mail
The cycles of life came in the mail. Credit card invitations when he was young. Cable and Internet deals in his middle age. House and window cleaning services as he aged, followed by landscaping and financial planning, then house-painting and payday loans.
As he reached his mid-fifties, AARP became friendly, as did companies like Prudential, offering planning assistance, worrying if he was saving enough for retirement. Cruise and vacation suggestions came every week. Everyone became concerned about his estate and his will. Hearing-aid flyers were frequently received. Then came funeral and cremation services, with coupons and discounts!
Reaching his mid-sixties brought flyers and letters for Medicare plans. Of course, every two years through it all were pieces from politicians, PACs, and political parties asking for a little money, pleading their cases, railing against one another, and demanding change.
Coming with weekly persistence regardless of the year or his age were advertisements from his local stores, catering to the holidays and time of year.
Fondly he remembered his past mail as he perused the latest offering from an assisted living residence and dropped it into the recycling bin, letting his imagination run wild about what his future mail would bring.
