The Shorts Dream
I was visiting with family. We were going to a special event. It may have been part of a wedding or a holiday. Never clear to RL me although dream me understood.
Women and children dominated in the dream family. I knew none of them from RL. A chaotic dream, almost immediately upon arrival, I set up in my room, a narrow, tall space with a cheap bed. This room later changed, becoming wide, and long, with a low ceiling. I didn’t notice the change during the dream but as I look back on it, I can see the difference.
Word was given, time to start getting ready to go. I dumped my suitcase to go through my clothing. I’d only brought shorts with me even though I knew it was supposed to be a fancy function. As I went through the shorts, discarding many as unacceptable, I chastised myself with my packing decisions — what the hell had I been thinking? Women who were dream family members kept coming by to see what I was choosing to wear. I had the impression that they were taking their cues from me. That unnerved me, as I felt pretty clueless and unprepared. NTL, I was going to do my best.
I tried on a pair of black and white shorts. Knee-length, they had a pleated waist and fit me well. Now a shirt! I found a silvery one which I decided went well with the shorts. Women coming by came and told one another, “He’s going to be sparkling.” They went off. When I next saw them, they were dressed in glittering sequined dresses in red, blue, black, gold, silver, and white. All wore ornate necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. They seemed like they were quickly ready to go.
But the children weren’t ready, and were following me around, waiting for me to dress. It’s now that my room became different. As I held up the shorts and checked myself in a mirror, I realized my shorts were muddied. OMG, now what was I going to do?
I began going through my shorts again. At that point, a young man came in. Supposedly another relative, he acted a little off. I thought that he could be on drugs. Other than that, he had short blonde hair, was my height but very muscular.
He walked around my room, telling me that he was just looking around and then asking me what I was going to wear. I showed him my muddied black and white shorts, then set them aside and continued going through the others. He complimented me on my shorts, walked around a little more, then suddenly moved. Grinning broadly, he left.
I decided that I’d wash the mud off the black and white shorts. They were gone! Realizing the guy had taken them, I went out after him. I quickly chased him down. He denied it at first, then held up the shorts and confirmed he’d taken them, but justified his behavior because he liked them and I had a lot of shorts to wear and he had none. As he finished this, I jerked the shorts out of his hand.
Shouting, he threw a punch. I dodged that and scrambled backwards and up onto a low wall. Fists balled, he came after me. Others were watching. I knew he was way more muscular than me and figured that he would easily beat me senseless. As he approached, I said, “I’m not fighting over shorts. This is stupid. These are mine. If you want to steal them, you can, but everyone will know.”
He’d been about to take the shorts and hit me. Jerking to a halt, he started berating himself. I grasped the gist was that he had problems and he was struggling to change. As he did that, I slipped away.
I still needed to wash my shorts. Locating a bathroom, I went in, closing and locking the door behind me. As I bent over the sink, a woman pulled the top of the door back from the frame, unhooked a lock and then reached down and unlocked the door. She opened it; I pulled it closed. She opened it again.
Another woman came up, demanding to know what was going on. I explained my end. She answered, “We can’t have this.” I realized that she was referring to a locked door. Leaving that bathroom, I went off to find a phone.
Dream end.
Wednesday’s Wandering Thought
The husband and wife were complaining about cutbacks. The city had removed the drop boxes for utility bills from ‘their’ end of town, necessitating a two mile walk or drive to drop the bill off. “Hardly a drop off,” he huffed.
She said, “They keep cutting services back but we keep paying more.”
He began laughing. “We sound just like our parents.” Standing, he said in a raised voice, “I remember when they delivered the mail twice a day and stamps were three cents.”
It was funny, even if it was all true. Someday, Gen Z will complain and say that they sound just like the Boomers.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thought
They used to tell him, “It’s the thought that counts.” But as everyone knows who thought they won an election, or bought a lottery ticket and didn’t win, believed they were going to win a football game, or thought they had Wordle in two moves, it’s not the thought that counts. It’s the results.
The Cleaning Dream
I was in a place where a female friend was holding a seminar. I don’t know its subject. It was being done in the woman’s home, in a great room area, combining living and dining room with kitchen on the end. Everyone present was known to me as family, friend, or RL co-worker. When the seminar ended, the woman said something like, “We need to do something about this.” I understood she was referring to cleaning up. I jumped up and said, “I’ll take care of it.” As everyone sat there watching, I collected all the dirty dishes, taking up to the sink as I did. Then I ran water, added soap, and washed the plates, silverware, and glasses, putting them in a rack to dry as I did. The sink was small and the area was crowded. The entire time, the rest sat in chairs, watching. So I started talking to them, telling them stories. Someone came up with a red and yellow cardboard label for some food item. The printing on it was bold black. I took this and announced to the others that it was a pass to take them anywhere they wanted to go, and then walked out, randomly selected one of the others and gave it to them. The rest laughed and applauded. I returned to finishing the dishes.
The end.
Monday’s Wandering Thought
Seeing movement on his vision’s edge, he thinks it’s his wife walking by and turns to speak to her.
It’s not his wife, but a short and plump elderly man.
He’s astonished. Other than the color of their jackets, the man looks nothing like his spouse.
Does he tell her about this incident? Do you think he has a death wish?
The Two Lions Dream
I was out on a shallow ridge. Alone, grasses blew around my thighs. I was planning to walk home when I looked across the narrow plain. Two male lions had just topped an opposite ridge and were sizing me up.
Panic shot through my body. I didn’t want to run, thinking, if I do, they’ll give chase and they’re faster. I grabbed a rock and large stick to defend myself and began trying to walk calmly but quickly — but not too fast — backwards to the house.
The lions were on me before I reached the house, nosing and sniffing me but not attacking. House doors were open. They went in as I did. I told myself to stay calm and think. The house was a large, white rambling building. Everyone was still in bed. All the bedrooms were on the upper levels. If I closed the doors to the upstairs, everyone would be safe. Then we could deal with getting the lions out of the house.
I successfully snuck around, closing doors as the lions walked around sniffing. Their presence attracked the house cats. I worried about the home felines but they insisted that they knew what they were doing. I retreated without them. Going upstairs, I decided I needed to sleep.
When I awoke, the others were up and the lions were discovered. At this point, people volunteered ideas for chasing the lions out. One man decided to take a bat and chase them away. We were all insisting to him that was a horrible idea but he stalked out with bat in hand, leaving the doors open.
The lions evaded him. Now they were into the upper levels. The house was a large and old, and had odd light fixtures and controls, along with a heater and furnace. Someone had turned both of them on, along with all the lights. The house was getting very hot. The furnace’s red heat was visible through the floorboards’ seams.
My mother-in-law (deceased in RL) came out to see what was going on. She told me the furnaced needed to be turned off because it was getting too hot. I agreed. The problem: the lions were by the switch.
I got everyone back upstairs by calling and talking to them. Going downstairs to the furnace control, I discovered that several of the cats were acting like they were lions, walking about with the lions. I reached the furnace switched and turned it off. The lions sat down on the floor, looked at me and disappeared. My MIL came downstairs and said, “Good. I thought we were going to have to call someone. Let’s have breakfast.”
Dream end.
Just Wondering
A recent television ad extolling Fitbit and Google’s virtues suggests, what if the two entities combined? I wondered, would they be called Goobit or Fitle?
A Friend’s Parents Dream
I was a young man, as I often seem to be in my dreams these days. Visiting at a childhood friend’s home. He wasn’t there. His mother, Arlene — who is deceased in RL — was hosted several of us attending a local school. While visiting, we were all watching television. I settled down on the blue carpet and went to sleep.
I awoke sometime later. Sitting up, I discovered that I was in a short-sleeved black dress. A little more explanation is needed. The dress was black, but see-through. It buttoned in the front. It had wide seams which weren’t transparent, and front pockets which also weren’t transparent. The dress came down to my knees, and I was fully dressed, in the same clothes as before.
Standing, I wondered what had happened and how I’d come to be wearing that dress. I attempted to take take it off but the buttons couldn’t be undone. It was tight, but with some maneuvering, I managed to pull it up over my head. Just as I am finishing, I hear a soft tearing sound. That stops me from trying any longer. Just then, my friend’s mother comes in with a tray of food and drink, telling me that it’s time to get ready. She goes on to explain that she put that dress on me to stay warm, sets the tray down, and hastens to help me. As she pulls it over my head and off, she tells me that she hopes she can get this off without tearing it because it’s special to her. We then hear it tear more. Looking at it, she sees that it’s torn and is dismayed, but then tells me to eat because I need to shave, dress, and go.
I eat an egg salad sandwich from the tray and drink coffee, and then start dashing around. My clothes are upstairs but the bathroom I’m to use is down below. As I hustle around, going up and changing clothes, then going down and shaving, others arrrive. I hear that my friend’s father will be arriving at any moment. (He passed away in RL a few years ago.) I want to be dressed and ready to go before he gets there. But then, he comes in.
I’m called upstairs. As I go up the steps, someone else tells me that Fred — the father — and Arlene want to see me. I step into the dining room where they are. Fred has a box on the table, and is opening. As he says hello to me, Arlene explains that Fred just purchased his first CD player and she wanted to know if I had any CDs for him to play because he doesn’t have any. I tell them that I have just the thing and dash downstairs.
I’m thinking that I’ll loan them several of my classical music CDs, which will surprise them, thinking that it’s more like the kind of music that they would like, rather than the rock I listen to. But I brought my little CD case, and there’s no classical music in it. I select a few blues CD and take them back up to them. Grinning, I explain the whole thing about the classical music CD.
Dream end.
I’ve not seen my friend since my late teens. Oddly, I’ve dream of him since then, as well as his parents.
Sunday’s Wandering Thought
He has noticed that as he gets older, he more frequently pronounces things as ‘just right’. It’s like he’d becoming one of the three bears who visit Goldilocks.
Michael Seidel, writer 