Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Went grocery shopping yesterday. A light shop, a stop-gap function done because we were in Medford for a medical appointment, so let’s shop since we’re here. Combining tasks is the ‘Merican way.
Watching folks with their shopping carts in stores, I thought, we really need to codify some basic shopping cart etiquette. I mean, most of spend an impressive chunk of existence in the U.S. in stores, guiding a shopping cart. Some rules and expectations could be helpful. Like, “Do not block the aisle with your cart and body. Be mindful of other shoppers.” Yes, that’s a toughie for some: mobility issues, size of the aisle, and size of the individual all contribute to the difficulty levels. But at least make an effort, won’t you?
While we’re at it, could you pay attention when you’re wheeling your cart down an aisle? Nothing like being forced to stop and watch as some yo-yo pushes their cart blindl forward while looking behind them. I was going to say to treat your cart like you’re driving a car but numerous lobotomized drivers seem to be steering motorized vehicles these day.
BTW, we’re all tired and impatient. You shoving your cart around, cutting others off, doesn’t help the sit. But we witness the same thing in road rage incidents, don’t we, as people impatiently cut corners and run red lights and stop signs.
Anway, to socialize these new shopping cart norms, we can involve shopping carts and celebrities. Imagine synchronized shopping cart activities in Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and other holiday parades. Shopping cart manuveuring and rules can be taught in elementary school. Remedial courses can be offered in high school and college. Perhaps there will be Olympic shopping cart events. Maybe we can change the hundred meter dash. Adding carts and staging it in grocery stores would make events like that more relatable to norms like me. We’d call it “The Shopping Cart Dash”. Makes more sense than high hurdles. How many times do you really do hurdles in real life?
Rev up your imaginaiton to the possibilities. James Croden could go shopping with celebrities. We can have a public service campaigns featuring Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift and other stars pushing shopping carts in stores while complying with the new etiquette. Which sports superstar, Hollywood uber star, or pop megastar would you like to see pushing a shopping cart to inspire you? With examples like Joey Logana, Selena Gomez, Jelly Roll, Tina Fey, Ellen, Aaron Judge, and Patrick Mahomes leading the way, we could become a nation known as polite and civilized shopping carters.
I mean, what else do we have going for us at this point?
I was working, just finishing a job. I don’t know any details of the work but it’d been administrative, computer stuff. My boss came over and said, “I just want to let you know that you’ve been doing really great work.” I liked, admired, and enjoyed him, so that really pleased me. Afterward, I went out with a few others. When I returned, I presented my boss with a gift of a bottle of red wine, which he happily accepted. Witnessing this, the company head loudly said, “You know, I like wine, too.” He repeated this a few times in a joshing way. We all laughed, and I told him that I got the message.
Leaving again, I entered my car and drove away. This was a car I once owned in RL, a black1993 Mazda RX-7. After driving some street roads, I entered the outskirts of a city where I picked up a friend to give him a ride.
He and I chatted away. Stopping at a traffic light, I looked over at the man in the car beside me. He was looking at me and my car. I immediately knew he was Korean, although I don’t know why that mattered.
Leaning over, he looked in my car’s open window. He complimented the car’s condition and took out a small brown cardboard box. Inside were two small white pieces. (Awakening, the pieces reminded me of the microwave pieces I’d used to fix it.) Saying, “I know these cars, and although yours is in excellent condition, you’ll need these parts to keep it going,” the man reached into the car and put the box into a small alcove in the dash that doesn’t exist in the real car.
The dream’s end found me in my little black RX-7 with my wife and the guy I was giving a ride. Three in that small sports car isn’t a pragmatic expectation but it worked in the dream. We were driving asses to elbows through city traffic under a cloudless sky. I was telling her about the Korean man and the parts he’d given me. Then I said to my wife, “Oh, damn, I forgot my new uniform.”
Dream end.
I was a younger man, actually my age when I retired from the military in RL. I was dressed in a common uniform of the day, the woodland camouflage battle dress that I often wore.
I’d been invited back for a visit. In most of my assignments, contact was limited to a dozen people in a unit; I worked in a command post, one to three people to a shift, locked in a vault-like space. No windows, one door, eight to twelve hours a shift. People weren’t allowed in without proper clearance, previous approval, and a reason to be there. We were often armed, in case someone who didn’t fit those parameters broke in.
But there was one unit where I worked regularly with aircrews, the training staff, admin, etc. Everyone had access to me, and me to them. This was the unit where I felt closest to my co-workers.
These were the people I was back visiting. We’d been a covert intelligence unit back in the day, but the Berlin Wall fell, the USSR collapsed, and our mission ended. I went back to the US to Space Command. Many in that unit went on to special ops, gunships, or on loan to do drug interdiction on behalf of the DEA. It was this last that was going on in the dream.
We were outside in a large field. I was back by special invitation to watch a military operation, and people from then were back by invitation to see me. Several came back and told me what they’d done since we’d last seen one another thirty years ago. One of the last, Capt. Z, said, “I think it’s time for me to go.” He was hesitant to speak. I said, “No, you’re too young. You still have more to give.”
He shrugged. “I think it’s time. I don’t have a choice.”
He left. The operation progressed. An officer said, “Now Priscilla will explain how the unit coordinates with other agencies to intercept and track illegal drug activities.” Priscilla began leading several squadrons of personnel in military uniforms across a wide street.
As I watched that, I realized that it was Priscilla, a RL friend from my current era, a college professor who had never been in the military. I thought, why is she here?
Dream end.
I dreamed I was with people who were preparing to monitor the results of an important experiment. We were high in a tall building. Part of it seemed to be lab but also living accommodations. I wasn’t part of the group and was envious, but hanging on the fringe, I’d become friends with several and a de facto insider. One young man who was part of the group had become a sort of mentor, explaining what was happening for me. He kept telling me, “You need to watch The Real Life. It’s the best documentary ever made, and it’ll explain all of this enough so that you’ll understand what’s going on.” He said this multiple times, in several different ways, and ordered me to repeat the title, “The Real Life”.
When I awoke and remembered the dream, I searched the net for such a documentary. Didn’t find it.
Michael Seidel, writer 