Talk About Being a Dreamer

I went to bed late and must have hit a REM cycle, because I went immediately into a dream (you know that feeling of almost falling into one? That.) In it, two of my 3-year-old's teeth were loose, and I realized they were rotting. I was really upset, and I woke up for a second. I told myself, "If his teeth are loose again, it's a dream." And did a reality check just in case. My daughter came in at that point and told me about a bad dream she had, and when I fell back asleep, it was a new dream.

There was a war going on in our country, and there were tanks and soldiers in this neighborhood that I believed was mine in my dream, but it's not the actual neighborhood I live in. Anyway, somehow four soldiers had gotten sick inside a tank and were so dehydrated they couldn't move off the top of the tank under their own power, so some other soldiers and civilians were passing them down to people on the ground to get them to treatment.

I took one soldier to the med tent, got him all set up with a nurse. They gave him some kind of IV and he had fallen asleep, so I headed back. I started to worry that I'd taken too long with the one soldier and maybe they needed me to help with the others, so I should hurry.

On my way back, I became distracted by an elementary school doing some kind of field day activity. Among them was a little blonde boy, about 8, named Stuart. Stuart was the kid who won everything, who was good at everything, and who charmed everyone. His dad forced him to be really competitive, and I apparently had heard rumors that his dad made him go days without eating, practice for hours and hours, and had even slapped him around on occasion to make him keep going. So basically, I hated Stuart's dad.

Somehow, I ended up at the church Stuart and his dad attended. It was nothing like my church. It was a huge building and the people were all very snooty-acting. They all also adored Stuart and his dad, which made me pretty ill. At some point, one woman pulled out an agenda and started talking about how wonderful they are, and I stood up in the middle of the meeting and said, "I'm going to excuse myself, since I can't stand that man."

The lady met me in the bathroom afterwards, and I felt bad for making a scene (not bad for thinking Stuart's dad was awful, just for making a stink about it when all I had was rumors), so I apologized to her. "Hey, sorry for making a scene back there," I said. She put on her most haughty tone and replied something to the effect of, "Well, we all have to learn manners sometime, I guess." I'm pretty sure I considered slapping her, but I woke up then.