Lost Again / Scary Christmas

Sunday night

Dream 1: Lost Again

I was alone, driving a tiny car on a 65-mile stretch of highway in North Dakota. The sky was darkening, and appeared ominous; it had already rained. I stopped at an intersection, not knowing which way to turn. Several lanes of cars pulled up to the light with me -- I was to their right. Not wanting to fight my way through the traffic jam, I pulled off the road to the right in order to get my bearings, and narrowly missed plowing into a deep body of standing water.

Dream 2: Scary Christmas

It was Christmas day at Mom and Dad's and I didn't have presents for anyone, having spent all of my money on DVDs. I would have to go out and come up with some cash, probably by trying to sell some stuff. I opened the door to the living room closet and looked for a Santa hat, figuring that that would help to cheer me up and get me in the holiday spirit. While looking around for it, I found several Christmas stockings that had been made by my siser-in-law, Dawn. They had not yet been hung by the fireplace. Once I found my hat, I got into some golf cart-type of contraption and drove it out the front door and down the front steps, steering with a long metal bar, similar to the handle of a child's wagon. I got out to the street and was prepared to continue to the store when I noticed three young black guys messing around with my parents' car. The bad guys had left their car on the 34th Street side of the block; it was a fairly small old junker, with black paint on the back and sides, with a champagne colored hood and roof. The next thing I knew, they left my folks' car behind, and walked up to their front door; one of them had pulled a pistol out of his pocket. I hurriedly called 911, trying my best to memorize the number on their license plate. When the operator answered, I said, "I want to report a robbery in progress!" She replied, "You'll have to take that class." I said, "There's a robbery happening right now! Please tell me what number I should dial!"

At that point the morning alarm woke me up.

*****

Dream 2: Scary Christmas

I probably thought of Dawn because we were making plans to go visit her and our new nephew at Dawn's parents' home, north of Nashville.

The other night I was flipping the channels around and watched a few minutes of some cop show starring the insufferable David Caruso. It was set in Miami. Anyway, I remember him saying something along the lines of "As we know, eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable." That quote seems to have influenced my desire to memorize the tag number on the robbers' car. Anyway, that's a pretty tough spot. What do you do when your family is inside a house, and three guys are at the front door, one of them with a gun? Do you act like a hero and get shot? Maybe I should have tried to run them down in my golf cart.

By the way, that cart is probably based on my dad's motorized wheelchair.