Dream, dream, dream

When I was a child, I had this recurring dream in which I was lost in a creepy, dark and very large house and needed to find my way out. It wasn't exactly a nightmare, beacuse although there was this overall sense of forboding, I wasn't exactly scared. As I got older, say into my teenage years, I figured out that this dream tended to pop up whenever I was especially worried. This was my stress dream.

Then I got a summer newspaper internship, and managed to be out of town the weekend that plane crashed in Charlotte. Huge news, great opportunity to impress potential employers . . . and I'm at the beach. Suddenly, my stress dream changed: The not-quite-scary, but-certainly-frustrating house was replaced by a more adult set of fears and angst: I'm in an airport, or near one, about to go on a trip. Sometimes, the challenge is making my flight. I can't find the gate, or traffic is blocking me, or the plane has left before I've arrived. Sometimes, I make the plane, and it crashes. But it's not the crash that's the problem -- the real dilemma is figuring out how to cover the crash while I'm on board.

Freaky, right? Well, last week, it got even better. When Judybat and I went snowboarding -- ow, ow, ow -- a few weeks ago, my mother and the O.A.F.S. stayed with the kid. They did a marvelous job keeping him healthy and entertained, except when my mother decided to teach TheBoy that coming to Grandma's house means going to Disney World, where he can see his friends, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Pooh Bear and Piglet. For a week, we heard nothing from TheBoy but "Want to go to Grandma to see Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Pooh Bear and Piglet. When are we going? Are we going now?"

This was highly effective and very annoying marketing on my mother's part. (Seriously, Saatchi & Saatchi should give her a call.) And so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised the other night when the airport of my dreams morphed into Disney World. I had a plane to catch . . . but I was stuck in line for Space Mountain. I was late . . . but I couldn't figure out which monorail would get me to the terminal. I was almost there . . . when a very evil-looking Minnie Mouse blocked my way.

My subconcious isn't anywhere near 'sub' enough.




P.S. We're flying to L.A. for the weekend for a Super Bowl bash. Yes, we know the Super Bowl isn't actually in L.A. No, I'm not taking the kid to Disneyland while we're there. That place gives me the creeps.