Weird dreams are made of this

I saw a cousin, the artist, a few days ago, and she told me she reads my blog.  This surprised me, because I am always surprised anytime anyone tells me they read anything I have written.  It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess.  So, when I awoke at 12:41 a.m. from a strange dream I knew I had to write it down and get it out here for her sake.  She will appreciate it.

My dream first started with me Christmas shopping at the Baptist Student Union on campus.  I was disappointed because there was nothing new from last year.  All the stuff on the shelves was the stuff Lloyd could not sell last year so he packed it away and unpacked it this year.  However, there were huge stashes of wrapped gifts, things that were already purchased and waiting for the buyer to pick up.  I knew I must have been late for the sale, and all the good stuff was gone already.

Then I went over to another place, a fast food restaurant, or bakery.  Jennifer Nettles of the band, Sugarland, was behind the counter and she called through the open door for me to come in.  A phone rang so I thought it was going to be a contest where you ask a random person a question to win a big prize. Surely the question was going to be about country music, with Jennifer Nettles there and all.  But the question was something about how many accountants were there in a certain business if you had “x” amount of this and that.  The question was so convoluted no one could answer it, and it seemed no one was supposed to after all.

I walked in and Jennifer Nettles went to the back somewhere so I was disappointed I couldn’t talk to her.  There were other people behind the counter, too, and I knew some of them.  One was the owner of the place.  She was a quirky woman, and she had a room in her house (which was attached to the restaurant) that held all the belongings of her recent ancestors.  The other was a dwarf.

The dwarf looked a lot like a bald Warwick Davis.  He kept following me around, giving me back-handed compliments.  I can’t remember the exact words he would say, but in essence he would tell me that I was talented, and good, and had so much to offer but basically I was lazy and going nowhere so I would be better off if someone just killed me.  I tried to shake him off politely because he scared me.

Jennifer Nettles came back to the counter and started asking me questions about my Shoemake relatives.  She thought she might have known some of them.  She was a very down to earth person and didn’t mind working behind the counter.  Apparently she was from the area and came back every now and then to help out.  

The conversation moved outside.  The dwarf kept following me around, telling me good things, then bad things, and then telling me someone should just kill me.  He would also tell me to “just wear the hat.”  I understood this to mean there was a hat that was given to people to wear as an honor.

The conversation turned to the owner’s special room in her house.  There was a large bald man there who asked if all the ancestors’ money was in there, too.  I was afraid he was going to try to rob the sweet lady, so I played it down and told him, no, it was just a place she kept their old clothes, etc.  

About that time the dwarf sidled up next to me and told me again how great I was, how bad I was, someone should kill me, but he was insistent on me wearing the hat. He shimmied up a pole next to me with a ratty blue felt hat shaped like a hat a Christmas Elf would wear.  I really didn’t want it on my head, but I didn’t want to insult him.  He was finally being nice to me, but I felt that any moment he would reach over and snap my neck.

Then I woke up.