Swizzy

I'm in a hotel room. My family's here as well. Some of them are drunk. Our room is connected by a door to another hotel room where guests are staying. My sister, Kristen, has had too much to drink and is not making sense. She hears the strangers in the next room talking. She walks over to the connecting door and yells to them, "go tomorrow!" Her statement makes no sense. The rest of us laugh.

My sister, Morgan, has had a few drinks as well. She's buzzed. She tells me that the movie theater downstairs is playing a free movie for anyone who wants to see it. Morgan and I go downstairs to see the film. The theater is crowded, as is the case whenever something is free. The movie begins. The production company logo comes onto the screen. I notice the words JOY and PRAISE in the title. Morgan asks, "Is this a Christian movie?" Just then, a picture of Jesus appears on the screen. I turn around, and most of the people are leaving. Morgan and I go too, not because we don't love Jesus or Christianity but because our opinions of Christian movies are poor.

We walk down a sidewalk through city streets. Morgan is drunk by this point. She goes back to the hotel room, and I keep walking. I come across a store that sells electronics. I walk inside and look at the CDs and headphones. I want Bluetooth earbuds, but I check the price, and they are $4000.00.

I wake up

The Adventures Of Chad And Keith

Dream 1.9.2018

My brother-in-law, Chad, and me are shopping at a small mom and pop store in a town far away from our own. In my humble opinion, this store is crap. Everything sold here is crap. All I am looking for is a package of Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies. I search the store far and wide, like an archaeologist searching for some long lost, precious artifact. I don't find it. And every time I think I've found what I'm looking for, it turns out to be something else entirely. In the end, I buy several packages of frozen meat. Also a zip lock bag full of leftover chocolate chip pancakes. When the lady at the front cash register rings me up, she asks for my social security card. An odd practice one would think for a grocery store, but I hand it over. She says something to me about security and then I leave. I stand outside, waiting for Chad. We drove different vehicles here. I drove his Traverse. He drove the Prius.

At home, later that night, I cook up some of my chocolate chip pancakes. My mom is watching NASCAR on TV. The race is taking place in an indoor stadium, something I've never seen before. Dale Jr. has a nasty crash. While cooking my pancakes, I regret purchasing all of the items from the store.

Chad and I return to the mom and pop grocery store, it seems, just to watch a TV on a shelf. We are mesmerized by the program so much that time slips away. I don't think we buy anything from the store this time. I walk through the parking lot searching for Chad's Traverse but then I remember that I drove my Jeep Wrangler. I love my Jeep. If there is one good purchase I've made in my life, it's the Wrangler. A solid vehicle. It gets me from A to B and C to D. I tell Chad that I have no idea how to get home. He doesn't either. I tell him I'll follow. We drive away.

I don't recognize any landmarks or surroundings as we go. We end up in a town that looks like Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Somewhere along the drive, we switch from driving cars to riding bicycles. We find ourselves in a town that one might find in an old Tim Burton film or lying within the stanzas of a Danny Elfman orchestrated piece. The trees are tall with no leaves. The buildings look European. The streets are full of people as if tonight is Halloween and all the neighborhood kiddies are tricking and treating for their candies. I notice several people dressed up as 18th century figures. As Chad and I ride through this quaint town, Chad lifts up into the sky like Elliot with an alien in his front basket. I look for a few minutes and then finally Chad reappears. I ask a nearby child what this town is called. He tells me that it is Vermont, Vermont. I think I might live here one day.

We finally find our way back home. But we don't have a key to Chad's house because I changed the lock. For some reason, my sister and the kids are not home. Chad and I grab a couple of sleeping bags and camp out in the drive way. While lying there, we hear a voice off in the distance. It sounds like an old, crazy drunk. We pay it no heed. As the night goes on, the voice seems to get closer. Worried, we go to the front door to try again. I look on my phone for a key app but am unable to find the correct key. Then the voice says something that grabs both Chad and my attention. "Keith and Chad, I'm gonna kill you!" It is still very dark outside. Chad and I walk away from the house and down the block. We still hear the voice but cannot see a thing. I take my phone and turn on the flashlight. I shine it in the direction of the voice but it is too dark. We see a house with the garage door open. We run for it. Chad says repeatedly that we're going to break in if we have to. We come to the door leading from the garage to the house and it is locked. I try to fit through the doggy door but it's too small. We bang on the door to wake the attention of those inside.

The residents of the house are awake but for a moment they don't hear our cries. Then, when they finally hear us, they shrug us off as if we are the town crazies. We finally see the man with the voice who threatened us. He walks fast into the garage, meaning to do us harm. Chad walks over to him and punches him so hard in the face that he is quickly knocked out. We place the old man in a green recycling bin. He looks like a crazy person. Like the elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor. I take a nearby bag of dog food and pour it on his face. This wakes him up. Another man is now in the garage with us. This new member takes a metal bucket and hits the drunk over the head with it. This surely knocks him out cold. The residents of the house, now understanding our situation, let us inside to call the police. Dream ends.

I wake up

A Head Full of Skin

Dream 1/7/2017

I'm babysitting a very fat toddler. The kid is obese. I have to keep a sharp eye on him because he keeps walking over to the staircase and trying to fall backward down the stairs on purpose. He may be trying to commit suicide.

My friends Matt and Aaron are throwing a house party. Matt shows me his sound equipment. State of the art. He's got a turntable, but instead of vinyl records, he's got cd's playing. My sisters and aunt are here. They are wasted. My aunt keeps telling us about a gathering tomorrow that we need to attend. I walk over to a group of people who are sitting down, one of them is the obese toddler, but he is much older. He's twelve or thirteen now. While the party continues, I sit alone at the dining room table and watch television. The reception is fuzzy on the TV. I can only half see and hear what I am watching.

The next day I attend the meeting my aunt invited me to. It's a Klan meeting. A Ku Klux Klan meeting. There are several people on stage in white robes. One of them looks like the pope. They are commemorating my aunt for something she did. At one point, the speaker urges everyone to walk over to another part of the room where many pictures hang on a wall. He mentions the significance of the pictures but they look like they've been drawn by an eight year old. I sit back down.

The speaker says, "These colored people think they deserve rights..." I interrupt with a round of obnoxious but purposeful applause. The crowd seems disturbed by my actions. The man next to me grabs me and squeezes my face until my teeth feel like they are going to break.

At the end of the meeting, the head honcho walks out of the building and I follow him. I intend to insult him when one of his guards, who is African-american, stops me. I start sweet talking her, "What if we go upstairs and we kiss and touch each other?" She tells me to meet her upstairs in five minutes. Dream ends.

I wake up

Running Scared

Dream 8/29/2015

I'm in a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant with my cousin, Deeje.

It's winter. Snow has blanketed the ground. Three strangers walk up to my truck. I suspect that they have had too much to drink or are on pills because one of them sticks his head in my window while the other two laugh about it. I push him out and try to drive forward. They start  throwing snowballs at me and my cousin. Snow and water drench the interior of my truck. My anger becomes too much to restrain. I rev my engine. They act like they're scared. I take off in their direction and run over the youngest of the three. He isn't dead, just badly injured.

I get scared. I fear that I am going to prison for a long time. My cousin and I forget our food and take off.

Suddenly, there is no more snow. Suddenly, we are no longer in our truck but on foot. We pass a nice sea food restaurant. Everybody knows its the best in town. Deeje says that he sees somebody that he knows in there. We enter the restaurant. I'm still afraid to be caught for my crime. Deeje finds his friends and talks with them. They are four elderly people. Deeje runs into the girls bathroom and locks it. I say, "what are you doing, having your period in there?" Then, out of the blue, Walter Matthau walks past me toward the mens room. He mumbles something as he goes but I can't make it out. Dream ends.

I wake up