Batch

12-18-2012 -- I am out driving, probably for a very long time, and very cross country. I find myself arguing with a friend about state borders and rivers and stuff like that, well into a very long trip. We eventually end up in Casselberry, on 17-92, just north of 436. I turn in to a business park or shopping center on the East side of the street, running an errand or just arguing with somebody or something.

When I eventually come back out, it is to a very nice sedan convertible. Couldn't tell you what kind, but very nice, attractive, beige model. I climb into the car, turn into traffic, and head south. By this point I am alone for the moment. I crank up the stereo, and have the music running through my head. [I might have woke humming it, but I am not sure.]

The brakes are not working perfectly, very soft, not much stopping power (noticing a trend here in my dreams?) and the car keeps pulling to the left. I am driving in the center of three lanes, but keep finding myself drifting into the left lane. I decide I have to do something about this. I soon find myself heading north on a narrow street, pulling up to a garage or service station.

At this point, I have the convertible, and also a large gray van, very much like the A-Team van, or the one my roommate Randy drives. It is a very old van. I find myself talking to the repair woman, who is a gorgeous blonde, kind of looks like Julie Musante (first couple of images) from the Ministry of Peace on Babylon 5, a woman about whom Ivanova commented "Captain, I think you are about to go where everyone has gone before."

She is telling me the van is very old, probably from the 70s, and it is going to take at least two days just to check over the thing and see what kind of condition it is in. The convertible will be much quicker. I ask why, and she explains, but I can't remember anything of the explanation. I am thinking of trying to hit her up for a date, when there is a yell from outside.

I step out to the curb, just do see Dale yelling, and the van disappearing around a corner. Somebody has stolen it. We climb into the convertible, and start to give chase. We head perhaps a quarter of a mile south, and turn west on a side street the van turned on, and I realize we're in England, so I turn onto the left side of the road, while reminding Dale to remind me of the proper side of the road to drive on here. In the process, we almost hit the van, which turns off of the side street, and is heading south on the street we just turned off of.

We travel maybe 2/10 of a mile down the side street to find a place we can turn around, then make it back to the main street and head perhaps another half mile south before we turn east on another side street, where we find the van parked on the north side of the street, in a driveway, on the diagonal. We pull in behind it to block it, and find two things.

One side of the van has already been painted a baby blue, as the thief tries to change it enough that people wont recognize it, and we are facing a large, thuggish punk who doesn't want to give it up. I try reasoning with him, explaining I need the van. I have no job, no money, and if I have no transportation to get around and find a job, I'll starve. He tells me he is in the same position.

He's a big, strong guy, in great shape, not a fat, out-of-shape, poor condition slob like myself, and I'm being very careful about how I speak to him, but I look at him and say surely he ought to easily be able to get work in a warehouse or digging ditches or anything like that. His reply is a surly "Don't want to." Obviously its he doesn't want a job, not he can't get one or can't do one. Accent and attitude seems rather like a stereotypical Liverpool tough from TV shows.

Anyway, we've caught him before he can paint the van, and know where he is at, and could bring the cops, so he realizes he isn't going to get away with this, and he starts to try and make a deal, instead. He really wants a cake. If I buy a cake for him, he'll give me back the van. I don't want to buy the guy a cake, of course, but I agree because it will avoid trouble, and be a halfway easy solution.

He leads me another block or two south on the main street, and the street turns to head west. Right on the south corner of that curve, he leads me to a very dirty, very dingy bakery. We walk in, and the place is a mess. There aren't many cakes, there are a ton of people in line, and it almost looks like something out of Dickens. I am glancing at the small cakes, mostly round double layer cakes of the sort you would find in supermarkets here in the states, but they are selling for prices in the range of 38 to 45 pounds each. These are expensive bloody cakes.

The lighting is very low, it is very dingy, and there is a very long line. I suspect I will have to wait in that line a couple of hours. I walk back outside, and decide if I have to wait that long, I am going to have a book to read, as I do so. I am glancing down the street at all the shops, figuring there has to be a bookstore somewhere. I am looking for a Chapters, but since this is England and not Canada, I probably should be looking for a Dillons or Heffers instead.