The Time I Was a Flippant Flapper

Last night I dreamt that I was a flapper, but I was nearing thirty, unmarried, and watching my inheritance trickle away. I decided to remedy my situation by getting a new outfit, attending a fancy opera, and catching a husband as soon as possible. I got my ticket and swept off to buy an outfit with my chaperone/maid. And where does a dream-flapper get reasonably priced fancy clothing? you ask. Why, at the vintage clothing store! Hahaha! The store and everything in it had that musty-sweaty-oily vintage clothing smell, but I found some nice, if wrinkled, pieces. I also decided to strip down and try some dresses on in the middle of the store because I didn't care who saw. I was a modern woman! A jellybean was in the men's section of the store. I'm sure he noticed me changing, and I was a bit intrigued but also frustrated that another poor, useless hipster was interested in me rather than the steel barons I wanted to attract. I considered how a vintage shop in the 1920s probably wouldn't sell clothes from the 1920s, and if it did, the clothes probably wouldn't be all old-smelling and faded, and then I woke up.

Why are the poor ones always the romantic ones?

The Time I Heard the Pitter-Patter of Little Feet and Bombs, Also the Mouth of Hell and Racism

     Last night I dreamt that I was working as a teacher during WWII. Most of my students were Ethiopian, but we weren't in Ethiopia. It might have been London. Anyway, bombs were going off everywhere and, rather than schoolwork, our classes consisted of running between makeshift shelters in gray, damp slums while urban warfare bang-bang-bangbangbangbangbanged around us.

Like London during the Blitz, but without the civility.

     Then we met this Russian sailor who had blue tattoos all over his massive arms and bald head. He was on leave, and he helped my little team of refugees find a safeish, dry hotel to sleep in for a few nights. I tried not to smell the sheets or think about what might live in them. The sailor and I hit it off, and when he had to go back to his ship, there were all sorts of swelling-music goodbye kisses.

     Anyway, pretty much as soon as he left, we were kicked out of the hotel. My Ethiopian students got a chance to ride a refugee bus back to safe, safe Ethiopia, so most of them got on. However, one super-cute five-year-old girl was left behind, and her teenage sister jumped off to get her.

Even cuter than these girls.

     We jumped forward in time, and the teenage girl was being rushed to the hospital in labor—but wait, it was me! "Are you going to have a black baby like I just did?" the teenager asked, holding her baby. "Well, I hardly think it would be really black," I responded between contractions. "Your baby is super light, and I'm white already. It'll just be kind of tannish."
     "But, ew!" I suddenly realized, "If I have a black baby, then I would have had sex with one of my students! Gross!" (Apparently the only Africans in the whole town had been my students.)
     Then something went wrong with my labor, and I was suddenly on a white plaza with the sun shining and four dark-haired people in black and red powersuits were carrying me by each arm and each leg. Other scary businesspeople surrounded them and looked down hungrily. I was dying! I was being dragged down to hell! I woke up (in my dream) in the hospital and realized it was just a hallucination brought on by blood loss.
     "Don't give up now! Keep pushing!" said the dirty-faced nurse. I slipped back into hell's foyer. The sky was darker and glowering. The businesspeople's eyes glowed red. I—this is so gross, but I'm the only one who reads my blog—sprayed blood all over them. I thought the blood loss would take me closer to hell, but instead the demons were repulsed. I finally woke up (in my dream) again, and there was my baby! I missed all the awful parts of childbirth because I was fighting demons in my head!
     What color was my baby? Um, red. So that told me nothing. I really didn't want to have had sex with a fifteen-year-old boy. They're just so incredibly unsexy.

This baby could literally be any race.

     Then the door to my filthy hospital room opened and my giant Russian sailor walked in! He asked to hold the baby and sang a Scots lullaby to it. He looked up at me with teary ice-blue eyes, "I was worried it wouldn't be mine," he intoned in a Scottish brogue. "I told myself that I'd be happy as long as the baby was light-skinned enough to pass. But I'm glad he's mine!"
     I was a bit confused because I couldn't remember having sex with the sailor either, but, whatever, at least he was, like, a fully grown man with muscles and working facial hair follicles and stuff. And he apparently was Scottish now, so communication would be simpler, and he probably wouldn't drink as much as he did when he was Russian. That was a plus. But why did everyone assume I slept with my students?! I smiled at my sailor, and then I woke up and had to shower again. Oi.

The Time I Was a Prisoner in a Heavy Metal Band and Nothing Made a Lick of Sense

I am a convict escaping from a horrible prison. There is a hospital in a hill above the prison, but they turn me in. I'm also a new age Celt because of a heavy metal band I heard from the prison walls. Also I'm me shopping for stuff at a Grocery Outlet. We try to decide whether Dennis would like a squashed box of Berry Cheerios

Then I'm in the prison trying to help the convict who was caught and will never see the outside again. Just sits in his own filth with the guy who ruled the guards, talking about his escape and counting days on the wall.

Also playing a game. My mom and I try to go to the doctor. Hear the prison and the Celtic heavy metal band. We went to the wrong hospital, but maybe I should wait until I'm at the right one. And then I wake up and can't write this down correctly.

The Time I Married a Bum

Mmm, that's marriage material right there!

Last night I dreamt that I was married, but I was also away from my husband, working. He kept asking me to come back and live with him. (That is pretty much my real-life roommate's situation, but I digress.) When I finally did quit my job and fly out to meet my husband, expecting ever-so anachronistically that he would take care of me, I discovered that my husband was homeless. He also may or may not have lived in Alaska, which you may notice is the worst possible place to be an urban beggar.

He was white, tall, and overly thin, and his brown hair was shaggy and smelled like sweat and dry skin, as if he hadn't washed it for five days. (Yep, I smell in dreams. It sucks.) In addition, he was wearing the standard-issue drab green and gray multilayer outfit that homeless guys are so fond of. I let him hug me, but all I could think was Lice! Scabies! Aah! Must burn clothes and shower in the next ten minutes!

Naturally, I refused to join my husband on the mean streets of Juneau, so I was a couch-surfer or something. My husband said I was dishonoring my marriage vows by not living with him, and I said he was dishonoring his marriage vows by not bathing or getting a job. I was working at a fish cannery or somewhere equally sad. Then my husband showed up one day and said he'd gotten an apartment, so I should move in with him. I agreed.

Home sweet home!

The so-called apartment was one room in a stinky motel with a dirty blanket on the floor for sleeping. We lay down together on the filthy floor, my husband cuddled me with his olive-green clad arm, and then I woke up.

The Time I Rehearsed for a Religious Song-and-Dance Number

Welcome to hell.

Last night I dreamt that I moved to rural central Pennsylvania. For some reason, (I think I might have been an reporter or police officer or something.) I had to go back to twelfth grade, which was annoying and boring. I'm telling you, whoever wrote Never Been Kissed has obviously not been in a high school since they were an actual teenager.

After school, I went to a church youth activity and discovered that everyone was practicing a complex song-and-dance number for some kind of church celebration. It was very intricate, and I felt awkward and lost. First, there was a dance to honor the first settlers of Pennsylvania. There was a dance with everyone together facing forward, and then we split into three or four circular groups. Many of the people had matching fabric pieces they were waving. Next, we celebrated America. That ended with many girls in the circle on pairs of guys' shoulders and others waving red, white, and blue calico fabric. The last dance had something to do with flowers. The fabric pieces were pink and yellow, and the circles crouched down and covered themselves with the cloth until all you could see was the cloth, like an American Chinese dragon moving around in a circle.

These kinds of "celebrations" always seem to involve large groups of people running around in circles.

A guy came up behind me and lifted me onto his shoulders. I didn't feel dizzy or fall, so I put my arms out and held the hands of people on both sides as we flew around the pink and yellow wheel. The guy had wide shoulders that were easy to stand on and could easily carry not-exactly-a-skinny-fourteen-year-old-girl me, and I looked down and saw gray hair and realized one of the adult leaders was carrying me on his shoulders. That made sense, since your average skinny teenage boy does not have shoulders conducive to small, but fully grown, women standing on them.

Anyway, the rehearsal finished, so I went over to one of the women who was helping with costume to get my bag of fabric scraps and instructions. I had to fend off a teenage boy who was trying to chat me up on the way over. "So, what are we rehearsing for?" I asked the seamstress. "The Philadelphia Temple opening celebration," the woman shrugged as she handed me a small gray bag that seemed way too small. I heard floor polishers start off on the other side of the gym. "But isn't that a ways away?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "we'll perform on May 14, 2017."

Maybe 2016. Maybe. © 2011, Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

"WHHAT?! I won't even be here then! Most of your best dancers won't be here then! We're graduating and getting out of here!"

"The more time we have to practice, the better our performance will be. We want to do our best for the prophet, of course."

I wandered off. Part of me was disappointed that I never would be performing for the prophet and all the curious residents of Pennsylvania who would come to gawk at the Mormons. And why was I even bothering to practice dancing when it's so freaking difficult?! Were they just expecting us to come back for the performance in three years?! I wasn't even supposed to be in high school or at youth activities! I'm a fully grown woman, darn it! I realized the gym was in some kind of mall complex but all the stores were closed because it was nine in the evening, and I wasn't sure where the exit was because most people had left while I was getting my supplies, and then I woke up.