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I had a series of three really strange dreams last night where I volunteering at my city’s fall street festival where I have been in charge of the beer tents the past few years, and was dealing with a really socially awkward and annoying teenage girl who wanted to volunteer with me. I did not know the girl or her parents in my waking life, but they all looked like an odd family that was sitting a table away from me and my girlfriend when we went out to dinner on Friday. The dream takes place in a time where COVID is a not problem. In real life, we made the difficult decision to cancel this years festival last week and I spent a lot of time this weekend e-mailing all of our vendors to let them know the festival isn’t happening.

When the first dream started, I was walking into the downtown hotel where we have our headquarters for the festival every year. I walk through the revolving door into the lobby and saw one of my friends who handles volunteer manpower talking to a couple and their teenage daughter who was in a volunteer shirt. I could see her pointing towards me and then quickly walked towards me followed by the couple and their daughter. When she got to me, she introduced me to the couple and their daughter Jenny. The couple told me they go to church with one of my co-workers. I had remembered my co-worker had told me to be on the lookout for a girl from her church who was planning on volunteering at the festival and relayed that to them and thanked her for volunteering. While they were telling me how much they like my co-worker, my friend walked away to go back to her post in the lobby.

As I continued to talk with them, I got a pretty strong feeling that something was off with Jenny. She was awkwardly tall and thin and had really long dark blonde hair that was pulled into a pony tail and tried to hide behind her parents while they talked to me. She really didn’t say much, while her parents did all of the talking and told me this was her first time volunteering and they were so glad they found me and were glad I could keep an eye on her. I asked if they were volunteering too and they told me they had other plans and only Jenny was volunteering today. They thanked me again and told Jenny to find me if she needed any help and then both shook my hand before turning and walking out the door.

With her parents gone, Jenny suddenly started to open-up although it was painful trying to talk with her. She kept wanting to talk about my co-worked and asked me all sorts of questions about her. It was like she was stuck in a loop and that was all she knew to talk about. I tried to change the subject by asking where she wanted to help today so I could take her to the right person, and she said she wanted to help me which I knew wasn’t a good idea since I was running beer sales and she was a minor.

I walked towards the ballroom to get a cup of coffee and to try to find someone to hand Jenny off to and she was right on my heels the entire time. Whenever I would talk to someone, I would feel her standing behind me and breathing on my neck. I tried to find someone who could use her help, but everyone seemed to have plenty of help.

Eventually I told Jenny I had to go get my golf cart out of the garage and make my rounds. I suggested she get something to eat or drink and meet some other volunteers and then I would check in on her later. She didn’t say anything or try to argue, but as I walked out of the ball room and towards the lobby, I felt a presence following me and turned around to see her following a few feet behind me. When I got to the parking garage and pushed the button for the elevator, I turned around and she was standing right behind me. I decided to take the high road since she and her parents were friends with my co-worker and asked if she wanted to go with me. She then had a really big smile and nodded yes.

After a few more minutes of waiting for an elevator and repeatedly pushing the button, Jenny tapped me on the shoulder and pointed towards to door to the stairs and meekly asked if we should take the stairs instead. I told her the golf cars were on the 6th floor and she said she would be fine with that. She then opened a door and she and I walked through it.

Instead of the normal staircase at that parking deck, there as a spiral staircase. As we got to the second floor, I saw the other staircase off to the side, but there were no way to get off. We kept climbing up the spiral staircase and when we got to the 6th floor, I could see the golf carts parked but there was no way to access the floor from the spiral staircase. I know the parking garage only had 8 levels, so we kept climbing. When we got to the 8th floor, there was nowhere to get off the staircase and when I looked-up it just kept going. I asked Jenny if she would see how many more floors until there was a way out and she said sure and seemed happy to be able to help with something.

I waited on the 8th floor and looked-up and saw Jenny disappearing out of view. Eventually, I heard her yell down and tell me that she was at floor 25 and still hadn’t found a way off the staircase. I shouted up that we should go back down to the first floor and I started walking down as I heard her meekly say ok. When I was at the second floor, I heard her catching-up to me. When we got to the first floor, I discovered there was no way off the spiral staircase even though that is where we had entered. Jenny offered to go down a few floors to try to find a way out and I told her that would be great. I stayed on the first floor while she started descending the staircase looking for an exit. I can remember looking both up and down and the staircase went as far as I could see in either direction. I would up form this dream in a panic as Jenny was yelling up to me that she still hadn’t found a way out. Right before walking up, I remember thinking I was going to loose my balance and fall down the bottomless staircase.


When I fell back asleep, I had my second dream. In this dream, I was driving my cargo cart checking on how set-up was going at all of the beer tents and Jenny was riding with me. She seemed to be soaking-in all of the surrounding as I drove and kept telling me how much fun she was having riding around with me. She kept asking me about what other things I volunteer with and asking if there were things she could do to help. She mentioned that her parents were now going to let her volunteer some. I was not happy that I hadn’t been able to pawn her off on someone yet and was ready for a break. She was about to drive me crazy.

I tried to get her interested in helping somewhere else by driving by other parts of the festival set-up where I thought she may be able to help and may enjoy but she didn’t seem to have any interest helping anywhere else or getting off of my cargo cart. A few times when I stopped at a beer tent, I would tell her she had to stay in the cargo cart and then would spend some extra time talking with the volunteers hoping she would get bored. I also gave some people rides on my cart hoping she would be uncomfortable being squished between me and someone else and decide she wanted to do something else but it didn’t work. She would just try to have really awkward conversations with the other passenger which were really painful for me to have to hear.

After a while, Jenny asked me if she could try out driving the cargo cart. I asked her how old she was and she said 16. I figured she had some experience driving in the past, so when we were in an area without a lot of traffic I told her she could try out driving the car. It was a horrible mistake. She was a terrible driver and it was terrifying riding with her. She kept driving on and off of the sidewalk, making really sharp turns where I was afraid I was going to fall-out, and going down hills way to fast.

I asked her if she had taken drivers ed, and she told me this was the first time she had ever driven anything. She told me that her parents wouldn’t let her drive or even take drivers ed because they did not think it was necessary.

I woke-up from this dream when she was barreling down a steep hill heading towards a retaining wall. I was yelling for her to stop and when I woke-up I was reaching over and grabbing the wheel trying to steer us away from the retaining wall so we didn’t fall down and get hurt, I woke-up in a panic thinking she was about to drive us over the wall.


After falling back asleep, I had my 3rd and final dream about her and the festival. When this dream started, I was in the bathroom at the hotel and was enjoying some time away from Jenny. As I walked out of the bathroom and towards the ballroom to get another cup of coffee, I looked out the windows and saw her sitting all by herself in the cab of a really old half ton GMC Truck with our city’s logo on the doors. I knew that truck would be going to the city maintenance yard to get sandbags and figured she had been recruited for that and I would get a nice long break from her.

As I was walking back to my golf cart parked out front, my friend that had first introduced me to Jenny and her parents stopped me and said thank you. I asked for what and she said that Jenny had told her that I would be happy to go to the maintenance yard to help load-up the sandbags. I tried to tell her that I was happy to let her have Jenny help with that but that I had stuff I needed to do. She then told me that Jenny really looked-up to me and didn’t think she would be comfortable if I didn’t go with her. She told me the guy from the city was running late and suggested I go ahead and wait in the truck with Jenny so we would be ready to go when he got here.

I talked with her for a few more minutes about things I would need help with at the beer tents as I finished my cup of coffee. I then went to re-fill my cup and talked with some people as I slowly walked towards the old truck parked in front of the hotel.

When I got in the truck, I sat down in the passenger seat next to Jenny who was in the middle straddling the stick shift. She told me she had never gotten to ride in a big truck before and was looking forward to it. As we waited for the guy from the city, she was taking in all of the surroundings of the truck cab and talking about how exciting it would be to ride in it. I couldn’t understand why a 16 year old girl was so excited about riding in a crappy of half ton tuck.

As we continued to wait for the driver, Jenny started to warm-up more and started telling me more about herself and her family. I learned that she was an only child and has always been homeschooled by her mom; that her parents don’t let he get out much and do stuff with other teens; and that they are going to let her volunteer some now that she is 16. As she told me more about herself, I had a better understanding of why she was acting the way she was but was also not sure how much longer I could deal with her. I also knew I needed to deal with things at the beer tents and hoped the driver would get here soon.

While we were still waiting for the driver, Jenny asked me how late I was working tonight. I told her the beer tents would have last call at 10 and then hopefully I could leave by 11. She got a really big smile on her face when I said that and then asked if she could borrow my phone to call her parents. I guess she saw I had a puzzled look on my face because she then told me her parents wouldn’t let her have her own phone. I then handed my phone to her. She quickly called her dad and told him I needed her to stay and help until 10 and asked if she could. I then heard her say that was no problem if they would be at a movie, that I could drive her home when I got done.

I woke-up from this dream as the driver was walking towards to truck knowing that I was not going to get a break from her the rest of the day. I felt really trapped and hampered knowing that I would have to keeping an eye on her and not able to have any fun.