Batch

01-09-2013 -- [This one is titled kind of odd because the dream was all over the place, and it would be halfway difficult to come up with a good title for it, but for the sixth or seventh day in a row, somebody has been showing up in my dreams who really has no reason to be there. And since a friend has jokingly theorized that this woman can put herself in other people's dreams, and since she has recently commented on how often others have mentioned dreaming of her, I can't help but start considering her a sort of stalker, placing herself in my dreams.]

Doing a mystery shop at a convenience store over by Universal Studios. Since they don't have a fountain drink area, and since the hot dogs look really mangled, I am being forced to buy coffee, which means this must be a Circle K shop. I am wandering around the store checking on all the things I need to check on, and am amazed by the guy that seems to be buying one of the hot dogs that looks like it has been setting on the rollers for days or even weeks.

The cashier is asking me if I need any help, while I am approaching the coffee counter. I get there right before a pregnant woman, and grab a coffee cup, but it seems to be the last one of any size. It also feels very flimsy, and I am worried it might not be a usable cup, anyway. Since I don't want to hover around the counter, I start to move toward the back of the (very large) store, and stay out of the way for a possible few more cups to be put out.

I find myself far in the back, near a restroom, and decide I'll take the chance to check it for the mystery shop, but right before I walk in, somebody who works there walks in. I figure I'll wait, but am rudely told the restroom is not and will not be available. I seem to remember the same thing happening the last time I was here, and start to argue with them a bit, wondering why these people won't let anybody use the restroom.

I end up walking and talking with a young punk-like black guy and slowly start to learn that this is a huge building, and it has more than one business in it. Toward the back, there is a construction firm, and their bathroom is for their workers. They aren't going to let anybody else use it. This actually makes sense, and knowing what is going on makes me a lot more accepting of it, though I do think they ought to put up some signs or something, so people know they are no longer in the same store.

I thank the guy for his information, telling him I really appreciate his letting me know all this, and he gets very belligerent, asking me if I am mocking him in a way that is very reminiscent of Karl's Otis at the Adventurers Club. He thinks I am making fun of him, but I'm not. He soon leaves, and I find that as we have walked and talked, we exited the building to the East, and are now in a small gift shop a door or two down from the convenience store I was mystery shopping.

The gift shop sells food (perhaps pizza, considering later bits) and a bunch of motivational and educational-style posters. They seem to be about 1/3 grammar, 1/3 humor, 1/3 motivational, and kind of blend into each other so it would be quite easy to buy the wrong one if you weren't careful.

I try to walk the few yards west that ought to take me to the convenience store, but somehow it doesn't seem to be there, and I walk something like a quarter or a half mile until the street dead-ends in front of a freeway. The last little bit I reach, there are a bunch of little kids (mostly girls) that seem to be doing some very weird and spasmodic (but somewhat cute, since they are little kids) dancing to what seems to be Christian parodies.

As I am standing there, I hear a loud chuckle, and a very familiar voice saying something like "It took me forever to learn to ..." whatever it was, doesn't stick in my mind, but I look up at the freeway, to see a car at the side of the road with Anne clearly visible in it. About that time, the car starts to drive away, but not before Anne looks down and sees me standing there. "Great," I think, "She is going to be convinced I am stalking her, now."

I glance down a narrow sort of alleyway, and see a pizza parlor. It seems to be an Al's Pizza (a very small Kissimmee chain with two or three units, though one or two may have closed down), but when I look again, it seems to have changed into a small sort of tent. The whole area is now looking more like a flea market or something, and as I am feeling hungry, I approach it to see about maybe getting a couple of slices. But somebody else pushes in front of me at the last second, and instead of wasting time glaring at him, I walk a little further down, looking at the other booths, before I come back to try and get some pizza.

I am thinking of buying three or four slices, but it seems like they may have just sold the pushy guy their last slices. Anyway, as I am trying to juggle all the stuff I am carrying (I had nothing to carry a moment ago!) I find I already have two pizza boxes and four slices on plates stacked on top of that. I obviously don't need to buy any more pizza. I find myself thinking I might want to reschedule my mystery shop, since I've somehow passed the place, except I have to go back there to get my car, anyway.

Except as I get back to where the street dead-ends by the freeway, my car is sitting right there. And I somehow have two tiny kittens, one black, and one white, climbing on me. They are mine, and I take care of them, but they weren't with me just a moment ago. Since I have these pizza slices just sitting on plates, and these cats all over me, I soon have cat hair on the slices and pizza sauce on the cats. What a mess. I am trying to get all of them in the car.

Almost instantly things change from me trying to get them in the car to driving down the road. Problem is, since they weren't with me originally, I have nothing to carry the cats in, and they are getting into everything. One of them seems to be almost rolling in the pizza slices, and I am paying so much attention to trying to get them out of the mess that I am not watching where I am driving.

When I look up again, I am in a narrow, brick-lined alleyway, very narrow, just a few yards from a short brick wall blocking access to a sort of drainage ditch / Los Angeles riverbed. I am so close to the wall, I don't even bother trying to brake. I crash right through the brick wall, and find my car teetering on the edge of a large 'ramp' of stone steps leading down to the river bed. At this point, I am still thinking if I back up carefully, I might be able to get out of this, drive off, and pretend like nothing ever happened.

But I can't get any traction, and as I continue teetering, I see some rednecks down at the base of this sort of 'stairway' with fishing poles in the 'river', laughing and gesturing for me to come on down. Suddenly the car tilts forward a little more, and I'm bouncing down the stair ramp, the rednecks diving out of the way as I plow through their fishing poles. At least it shut them up. I crash through another wall, and find myself teetering over another ramp, this one steeper, and leading right into the water.

I have no roof anymore, and seem to have very long arms, so I am grabbing stuff from the car, and trying to toss it out to somewhere safe. There are back packs and boxes of stuff, pizza, and the kittens. I try to put the kittens on the ground, but my aim is bad and I seem to toss them into a very shallow fountain. One of them is fine, but the other is right under the tiny waterfall, and though it is very little pressure, the kitten is so small it is drowning, so I need to reach in and fish it out.

About this time, there is a siren, and an ambulance-like vehicle pulls up. It seems help has arrived. There is an older lady with white hair who kind of reminds me of Sarge, a bus driver I once knew, and a younger lady who kinds of looks like Jane from the Britcom Waiting on God, who is wearing what seems to be a cross between a hazmat suit, and one of those protective bubble-type units in a hospital ward. Inside the see-through suit, I can catch glimpses of her partly clad and scarred body, and it kind of seems like her belly has been opened up and stretched, so that she has a sort of external womb, complete with several babies still attached by umbilical cords, sticking out of the backside of her suit. Yuck!