Saturday Afternoons

So I just woke up from this short afternoon nap.

And I had two dreams.

In the first one, I was some kinda nerdy little Doctor Smith-lookin' food critic guy.

Yah, y'know, I know its kinda unusual, but I'm not always me in my own dreams.

Anyways I was visiting this tiny restaurant, or mebbe it was a diner, 'cause you could see the cooking area, past the cash register, I'm not sure, but it was kinda late at night, and there weren't any other customers, there was just me and the chef, and most of the lights in the place were turned off, so its kinda spooky.

And the chef is this crazy Harpo-looking older guy in an apron, with curly white hair poking out from under his chef hat, and he says "I'm going to make you my special dish!"

And I'm all filled with dread but I try to pretend everything is cool and I'm all polite and awkward and I just sit there and wait with this big nervous smile on my face.

And the guy comes out with a plate, and on the plate is this lump of purple goo.

And the chef is all like, "Enjoy!"

And I can't tell if this guy is serious or if he's angry with me or something, but he's standing there at the table, all electric and sweaty with some kinda excitement, either way, waiting to see what I do.

So I take a fork and I stab at the purple stuff, to make sure its dead, and I take a bite.

And its Grape Jello.

Grape Jello that somebody chewed on for a bit and spit back out.

Or mebbe its Grape Jell-y, y'know, like ya might put on a Peanut Butter and Jelly sammich.

Its hard to tell, mashed-up Grape Jell-o and Grape Jell-y are both subtle variations on the Purple Slime Theme, basically, with just slightly different densitites and textures, y'know?

Anyways, the guy is looking at me with those crazy bulging eyes of his, and I still can't tell if he's waiting with his heart dangling from his sleeve to hear my verdict on his "Special Dish," or if he's waiting for the sedatives he put in it to take affect or something heh.

So I smile, and I let the Purple Slime wiggle around in my mouth for a while, and I swallow it, and I say something like "hmm," y'know, as if to indicate that I'll need to eat s'more of the Purple Stuff to make up my mind about it, when I'm actually just stalling for time and trying to make up my mind on how to get the hell out of this situation heh.

And so I stab at the Purple Pile on my plate a second time, and I try to take another bite, but my hand is all shaky, so the shit falls off the fork, and lands on my dressy lookin' blue shirt, right near the collar, and a big blob of it starts to tumble down the front of my chest, leaving a dark and sinister looking slime trail.

And so I jump up from the table, and I say something about how clumsy I am with a nervous laugh, and I run to the bathroom and I shut the door and turn on the water to give myself some time to think.

And that's when I woke myself up the first time, and realized that I'd only been sleeping for like five minutes.

Whenever I have a stupid dream like that, I always wake up in the middle of an internal argument I wasn't supposed to hear, where one part of my brain is yelling at another part of my brain for fucking with me when I was supposed to be resting heh.

So whatever, I drift back off to sleep.

And suddenly I'm driving down the tollway during rush hour, on my way home from work, but the traffic is moving along at a pretty good place, y'know, I'm sorta flying along in the left lane, doing at least ten miles over the speed limit, just like everybody else in the left lane.

And we get to the first tollbooth, and I end up accidentally going through the I-Pass lane, because I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing.

I-Pass is this electronic thing that pays your tolls for you so you don't have to, over here in Illinois, I know they got it in other places, and they call it something else, but its kinda nice 'cause you don't gotta wait in line to pay your tolls in cash and shit.

Anyways, I don't have I-Pass, and when I get to the gate, I just drive through like some kinda maniac and the fake little orange gate that's not really supposed to stop you just sorta bounces off my windshield heh.

Now, on my way home from work, in this dream, there's three toll booths I gotta go through, and that was just the first one, so during the whole ride between that toll plaza and the next one, I'm all worried that some cop is gonna pull me over, but nothing happens.

So then I get to the second tollbooth area, and this time I get into the right lane, as if I'm gonna throw change in the bucket, insteada talking to a person, but then, at the last second, I don't actually give it any change, and I just drive through and let the orange gate bounce off my windshield again heh.

Anyways, so there I am, again, trying to get home in this dream, worrying all the way to the next tollbooth that I'm gonna get pulled over again.

But nothing happens.

So then I get to the third tollbooth, and this time, I get in the far right lane, where there's actually a tollbooth attendent that you can talk to.

And I get all this money together to pay for all three of the tolls that I shoulda paid for.

But when I'm one car away from the booth, the booth attendent turns out the little light in his booth, and he puts up a Closed sign in the window, and he steps out.

And me and the car ahead of me and a bunch of honking cars behind are all stuck there, waiting, because we're too close to each other to leave the line without scraping bumpers.

And then this old toll booth guy comes over, with a tip of his little Toll Booth Captain's Hat, and he starts trying to entertain us with Toll Booth Stories while we wait for the real Toll Booth Operator that supposed to replace the guy that went off duty.

And its horrible Toll Booth Operator Comedy, this old guy's stories are the tortures of the damned.

And the whole time I'm waiting there, I'm worried that this is all a set-up, that this is just some clever subterfuge for them to get me trapped while they wait for the cops to show up and arrest me for what I was doing earlier, y'know?

Well, in the Waking World, the physics of a trap like that seems kinda weak, for a couple of reasons, but it made sense in the dream heh.

And even if it isn't a set-up, I'm still wondering if it was better to admit that I blew through the first two tollbooths, so that I could pay for 'em, or if it was better to just pay for this one and not say anything about the other two.

I'm not sure what all the Tollbooths Rules and shit are, y'know?

So then I woke up, again, like a little kid caught between two parents arguing, where one half of my brain was yelling at the other half of my brain for fucking with me, again.

And I figure neither of these stories are really worth the trouble of turning into something serious so I wrote 'em down here in case I need 'em for later heh.