Shiftwork in Dreamland

I dreamed I was playing cards with my mom, Bush, several familiar dreamscape guys and Rick – a racecar mechanic who was a regular when I tended bar in Smashmore.

Bush was wearing one of those checked shirts he likes to put on when he’s pretending he’s “down home”. It was red, white and blue.

My mom had to leave to see patients. Rick leaned over to play her hand. I looked down at my cards. I thought we were playing Old Maid, because we were using Old Maid cards…but I realized that we were actually using 2 identical Old Maid decks and we were either playing Euchre or Rummy – I didn’t know which and I couldn’t find out because every time I tried to ask, Bush would say, “No table talk!”

I looked at my hand and I didn’t have any books. I had 2 pink hippos and 2 green giraffes and various unpaired animals. Rick was having a lot of trouble sorting out his hand and mom’s hand so I helped him out and was pleasantly rewarded with the realization that now I wouldn’t feed him useful cards.

There was a very fancy 35 mm camera on the table – but some of the film was exposed. Bush wanted to take pictures of people – but because of a supernaturally imposed law, he could only take pictures of people who voted for him.

My mom came back wearing a sweater that was also a band-aid dispenser. Bush laughed at it, but mom told him to stop because everyone’s fingers were bleeding from someone walking all over the entire compound (?) giving everyone the finger prick test against their will. I looked down and there were used finger prick tests all over the floor. The glass crunched under my shoes. I tried to get the guys help me clean up all the biohazardous waste, but they ignored me and kept playing cards. I realized I needed to go check my tables.

I walked through very long hallways for a long time. The hallways had large plaster rosettes on the walls. I began walking and was wearing a long shimmery gold and apricot dress as I passed a very hoity-toity, fine-dining room. As I continued through the hallway I passed three more rooms, each a little less fancy than the previous until I passed Victoria-the-awful-folk-singer who was torturing the crowd by wailing thru a cheap karaoke P.A. and twanging out-of-tune catgut. She was also waiting tables.

I was now wearing one of those horrific industrial waitress uniforms that perpetually smell like cigarettes and grease and we were working in a Keno Lounge with the World’s Nastiest Carpet. We were serving beer, pizza and popcorn to a group of people who had just come off shift at the factory and one of them had just been fired, retired or deceased -- no one ever said exactly. A guy standing by the door who was one of those weird hybrid conglomerate dream people said he would watch my tables because I needed to go finish my card game now.

The Old Maid/Euchre/Rummy game was suddenly very urgent and I was running down the long hallways which were growing taller with each labored step in oversized high heels.

I jolted awake at the time I should have been leaving for work.