Ack, it wasn’t OUR Tiffany that hit you on the arm with a softball, Jeannettee, was it?

I had the oddest dream last night. I thought I should write it down before I forget.

My dream opens up in a boutique, Ross I think. My friend and I work there under this very tough manager. We put away clothes, serve the customers, etc. One big rule is that we can not try on the clothes. That is enforced by magnetic tags on the clothes that beep if we come near the dressing room without having it demagnetized by the lady in front of the rooms. Odd, I know, but that’s how it worked.

I’m picking up clothes when an Asian lady comes out of an isle wearing a long, green, slinky dress. It was one of those strapless dresses that had a big V down the middle to her stomach. I was wondering, “Wow, how did she get in that dress in the isle without getting arrested?” The woman cooed to her baby in the baby carriage and asked it if she looked good. Then she proceeded to dial up her friend on her cell phone and talk. She wandered around the store talking and when she passed the wall where I was putting back swim suits, she was bragging about how the dress fit perfectly and that she still looked hot. I hope I looked at her weirdly in my dream.

I quit putting back swimsuits for a while and went to the cash register where my manager was. He was talking to this little girl with two black pigtails, who was drinking some chicken soup, I think. He wanted her to pay for that chicken soup because it came from our back room, the employee’s lounge. I got bored and wandered back to my swimsuits, when my friend drags me over to where the manager couldn’t see us. “Isn’t this so cute?!” She squeals as she holds up this outfit. “Yes,” I said. “Well, I’m going to try it on.” I look at her incredulously and remind her that it’s against the rules to do that while we were working. She said she didn’t care and that is was too good of an outfit to let someone else find. My friend bounded to the dressing rooms and put on the outfit. I didn’t hear any beeping, but when she came out, my manager saw her. He looked very angry and as a punishment, he put her outside where it was freezing.

The outfit itself was a little skimpy and I could see that she was shivering from the cold. She kept pressing her face to the windows where I was putting back swimsuits again. I felt so sorry for her. Usually people came by the shop window and stopped to look at what was inside, but now they were making a wide circle around my friend and looking at her oddly. I was putting away the swimsuits and giving comforting looks to my friend, when I spotted this super cute swimsuit set. It was a red bikini set with a striped sailor’s shirt. I had that same urge to try it on, like my friend did, but I was not about to be caught and sent outside in a bikini. So I went behind this wall, away from the window and behind some racks, and I tried it on. I came out and showed my friend (who was still outside) and she laughed. She gave me a thumbs up sign which made me feel quite good. Motivated, I went to change into this other bikini set I had put up. It was a mix of sea greens and light blues. I put this on and came back out, with my friend still complementing on it with her thumbs-up sign.

I don’t know what happened next, but I was back in my regular clothes walking out of the swimsuit section. I saw my manager feeding the girl with the two pigtails something. It was bread. Apparently, he was making her pay for the amount of bread she had eaten, but only if she liked it. So he was breaking up the bread she had supposedly eaten and weighing it, feeding it for her approval, and adding up the dollar amount. I leaned across the counter where he weighed some bread that cost five dollars. He fed it to the girl and asked if she liked that jalapeno bread. I shook my head no, but she told him yes. I pinched her for adding another five dollars to her long list money she owed, and she winced ever so slightly. That part of my dream ended right there.

The next thing I knew was that I was in the little pigtailed-girl’s dream watching as she came flying down on something with two little boys. The two little boys couldn’t seem to keep their hands or mouth off her pigtails so she got really angry and beat them to the ground with a fire stick. She was heaving with anger when she stopped, still holding the fire stick. Suddenly, there was this stream of ice that entrapped her flame. The girl looked up and saw this figure that was her father, I presumed, though I did not know why. She stopped and we went into this cave where we saw his preserved body encased in something. I don’t know if he talked to us in our minds, or by ear, but I heard him say, “Don’t mind my -- nose.” I don’t know what that word was between “my” and “nose”, but I understood that he meant not to mind his somewhat remnant of his nose. I didn’t even think about that at first, but as I moved closer to get a look at it, my dream ended.

I believe I had another dream then. I was reading Tiffany’s blog about a picnic she went to with her family and then she was insulting me on how my family took packaged foods while hers took homemade food. Yes, that was weird. Her blog colors were different too. It still had a blue background, but the text box was red, and the text itself was white. It was ugly.

Dream interpretations, anyone?

Are you seeing who I really am?...5:24 p.m.

Friday, April 11, 2003