NBF's DJ

I have a principal role in a film (not the lead, but a major supporting) and the crew has suddenly decided they’re going to put everything in helicopters and go to shoot the rest of the film in Scotland. I realize I don’t have all my wardrobe!! I left it at home! We’re in Stormhaven, my home town, so I tell the production manager and she immediately gets behind a wheel and drives me out to Quartz Beach. We still only have a cottage there, not a full home (in real life we built a full home in 1979 when I was 15). I’m fretting the whole time because it was simply my negligence; I had the wardrobe for a play I just did and I guess I was so tired after the last performance that I threw it over a chair and forgot to put it in a bag to bring to set. Anyway, we’re on the clock, because in four hours, at midnight, we have plane tickets to Scotland.

Then it’s my sister Bren behind the wheel. Bren is the problem solver of our family. First she goes through all the tops I have with me and we find one that’s reasonably close to the top I was wearing in earlier takes, but not by any means an exact match. Same colour, different cut. I try to explain to Bren that it’ll be quite noticeable in jump cuts because it’ll appear as though I’m wearing a different outfit from one second to the next in the same conversation. We do have the tights I wore on Total Recall, my Mary Jane shoes, underwear, and the sweater I wore on Total Recall, but not the top I need. All we need is a rose-coloured button-down top.

We get to the cottage and I rifle through everything and can’t find the top. Then suddenly there’s a party full of my parents’ relatives and friends, so I can’t leave yet until they all catch up with me. Bren, unsympathetic, is beside me saying, “Smile.” (In other words, the family's concerns for appearances are more important than my career in the film industry.) I manage a tight smile. Bren, unconvinced, gives me a disgusted look.

Then I notice we’re in a school. An idea occurs to me and I voice it: “What if they held the Academy Awards in a school like this?” (I think I meant I’d like to bring my ideal world into my real world.) Bren thinks this is a great thought and shares it with Mom, who is on the other side of her. No one seems aware that I need to be on a plane in two hours.

We get into Stormhaven and for some reason, we need to stop off at our town home. I’m getting more and more frustrated and scared of production’s reaction to me if I miss the flight and hold up shooting. There’s something I need to get. Yes – it’s the top, which as it turns out is in the house in town, not the cottage. I find it and throw it in my bag, which already has a twin-size mattress in it so there’s not much room.

Then we’re in a Canadian Tire store and we’re looking at huge old-fashioned brick-like cell phones that can only call one number. (They're set up like one of those cylindrical devices on The DaVinci Code, mechanically rather than electronically programmed, where certain tabs are depressed and others aren't, so when you press the one button it only dials the one number.) Everyone wants one. I get one so I’ll have it on the plane and be able to update production on where I am.

Then we’re cartoon characters bouncing along a sidewalk feeling guilty for all the evils in the world. We’re children playing. I realize by this time that I’m not getting to Scotland. All my friends bounce away and I lose track of them. I yell, “Hey! Consciences! Come back!” – but the only one who hears me is a funny-looking cartoon character in a top hat with a cane. He isn’t one of my friends, so I ignore him.