Cracker Couple / Bent Bike

Thursday night

Dream 1: Cracker Couple

I was driving my Honda Fit in an underground parking garage, nimbly making sharp turns around corners, heading for the exit. When I got to the gate, the parking attendant, Sting, was talking to a woman in the car in front of me. He knew a thing or two about cars, and was suggesting good economy automobiles. He mentioned a Toyota, and then he said that the Honda Fit is very good, too. I leaned out of my driver's side window and said, "I love mine!" When it was my turn at the gate, Sting gazed at my new car and commented on the one that I used to park there. He said, "Didn't something happen to your wife's [old] car in St. Louis?" He thought he was so smart. It made me uncomfortable. I told him that I'd gotten into a wreck, but it didn't happen in St. Louis.

I pulled out of the garage into complete blackness, and was immediately lost. All I could make out was the faint image of a river running parallel to the road, and figured I'd just make random turns, hoping eventually to get to civilization, meaning, a recognizable town. After my fourth turn I was relieved to finally see the glow of a city in the distance. I ended up on a highway, and was thrilled to see the U.S. Capitol, still a ways off, but straight ahead, shining like a beacon. Finally, I knew where I was, and where I was headed. Apparently, my car was thrilled, too; it began to fly in that direction, soaring up a hill to a high spot on the roadway. As we flew toward D.C., I noticed that we were passing a curious parade that was moving in the opposite direction on the other side of the highway. It featured hundreds of couples. The men were skipping jump ropes, and the women were walking next to them. One of the couples was involved in some type of infraction, and got in trouble. They bumped into another couple by accident, which threw off their rhythm, and then they got pissed off and began shoving others in the back on purpose. As I passed this scene I heard a loud voice-over announce, "The Cracker Couple is Disqualified!"

Dream 2: Bent Bike

I was in a group of people that had finished up a trip, and were about to fly home. One of the guys in our group was Andy B., whom I'd known in elementary school. We'd just gotten to the airport, and came upon a sight that made us rather uneasy. Debris from a plane wreck was strewn about the runway, and was marked off by chalk and cones. There was nothing too grisly, mainly plastic parts, as if a few things had dropped off of a plane during a takeoff, or landing. Still, it wasn't what we wanted to see before boarding our own plane. I had a bicycle with me, and wasn't sure what to do with it. One of the guys in our party suggested that I chain it to something next to the building. I said, "But I don't have a lock, and besides, we're so far from home." (In other words, how will I ever get it back?) I stood there pondering what to do, and when I looked up, my group was gone. I thought that they got into an elevator, but I wasn't sure which one, or which floor they were on in the terminal. Finally, I figured out that I had a pretty special bicycle after all. It was designed so that I could fold the front and back tires in toward the center of the frame, to make the whole thing more compact. I did so, and took it with me as my carry-on luggage.

*****

Dream 1: Cracker Couple

Ever since starting my current job, it's much tougher for me to get days off to travel back home than it used to be, since I'm responsible for dealing with publications that are on strict deadlines. Something's always deadlining. Even though I've asked for days off months in advance, I've had two requests turned down already this year, and it makes me mad. If I was living back home, I wouldn't have to stress over how to meet up with old friends on a weekend; it wouldn't require a moment's thought. Living 600 miles away, it takes an awful lot of thought, if I plan to drive, in order to avoid adding a chunk of money to the credit card for plane tickets. (We've been invited to a summer cookout in June at the home of some old friends.) No wonder my car was literally jumping at the chance to head toward the gleaming Capitol in the distance.

I saw a recent PBS documentary about a multi-generational family that was taking their parents (who were also grandparents and great-grands) for one last hurrah around the country in a Winnebago. It was amusing seeing how they all got along, thrown together in tight quarters. One of the sons, who appeared to be about 50, exercised at camp sites by jumping rope. That must be why the guys were jumping rope in my dream.

Even though I have disdain for some of my fellow citizens in Tennessee, "cracker" is not a term that I'm in the habit of using. I am currently contemplating whether or not to include the song "Low" by the band Cracker on a CD that I'm compiling, so I suspect that that's why that word crept in to last night's dream. Or, maybe I was hungry for some crackers...