The Lights Out West

In my dream I was working in a grocery store stocking shelves when a very sharply-dressed corporate-looking woman stopped and asked me where to find some weird gluten-free something or other. Since I stocked the shelves I knew exactly where to find it, so I led her there. She was pleased that I was able to find the item so quickly and she told me that she had been there several times before and asked, but no one knew where to find it. Then she ran down a list of odd items and asked me if I could find any of them. I realized she wanted me to take her to each item and basically do her shopping for her, but I didn't really care. Once she had all the items she left and I went back to stocking the shelves.

An hour later she returned... with Kanye West. (Yup, this dream is about meeting Kanye West and being at Hy-Vee, the two things I despise most in this world.) Kanye wanted to know how I found all of those items so fast and I told him I worked there and knew where everything was. He told me that his assistant (the woman who was shopping on his behalf) had talked to the manager previously and had been told that the store didn't carry those items. I told him the manager was an idiot and didn't know anything (who cares if I get fired?). Then he asked me if I could find all of the items, plus some additional stuff that he gave me on a list. I looked the list over and told him I could do it. He glared at his assistant and dismissed her. "To remain above all and to create at this level of artistry, Kanye needs the best and nothing less," he said. (Yes, he referred to himself in the third person.) He went on at length about how his brilliant creative output and artistry required a higher quality of nourishment than the rest of the masses and he offered to pay me one million dollars if I would agree to do his grocery shopping. I agreed.

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My next dream was less interesting, but I wanted to write it down anyway. I woke up in the middle of the night and went into the bathroom and turned the light on. Or at least I flipped the switch – the light didn't come on. That's weird that all those bulbs could be burned out at once, maybe the power was out. None of the lights in the house worked, but everything else electrical worked fine. It became darker and darker in the house until I could not see anything and could only feel my way from room to room. Not a single light source anywhere, except the clock radio in the bedroom and the clock on the microwave. In the dark I began to realize that there were more rooms in my house than there were when I could see. Soon I was walking for what seemed like miles, stumbling from room to room looking for a light. Funny how watching something right before going to bed can mess with a person's head like that.

Today

Writing a blog has been a new experience for me. I have a lot of things to say, but it's tricky to know how to say them or even where to start. I guess one of the most important things is honesty. I've read blog posts from other people who I know personally and they aren't even honest with themselves. How messed up is that when you can't even be truthful about your life in your own blog?! A personal blog should be the one place where you can tell it like it is. No whitewashing, glossing things over, or distorting the facts. Otherwise it's just fiction. Which is fine, as long as everybody knows it's fiction. Anyway...

So I'll start off my blog with some honesty: I'm typing this while sitting at my desk at work. Yup, I'm writing this while on company time. My excuse for this is that we have some downtime at the moment and there isn't anything else to do. I simply have to be here in case a problem pops up or a rush project gets thrown my way. It's the day before Christmas vacation and we have completed all of the 2011 publishing deadlines. So here I am at my desk typing away and my coworkers are surfing the internet. Probably should have been a sick day. Oh well.

On the upside, one of my carpool peeps brought me a plate of cookies this morning which made for a great breakfast. I don't know why everyone bothers with trying to eat healthy crap to start off their day. Most of the "healthy" stuff you buy in the store is loaded with sugar and preservatives. Some of the granola bars have almost as much sugar as a candy bar. They're overpriced, lack protein, and generally underwhelming. At least with cookies you know what you're getting. And cookies don't come in a foil wrapper that explodes saw dust all over when you try to open it. Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Nature Valley!

Let's see, where was I... oh right, talking about blog writing. Blog writing has been kinda fun. I used to write stuff every so often and then delete it when I was done. I didn't really have anywhere to post it and I'm shunning Facebook because it's against my religion (not really, I just got Facebooked-out). Now that I have this blog, I can post all sorts of ridiculous, cockamamie stuff. And I can use words like "cockamamie" just to annoy everyone who reads this. In fact, I think I'll start dropping some old-timey words and phrases into my blog posts from now on and no one will know what the sam hill I'm talking about. See if that don't butter your necktie.

Alright, I should get back to eating cookies. Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

A sinister smile in every aisle

Last night I had another dream that has stuck in my head. Most dreams fade quickly after I wake up, but this one won't go away. To give you some background, I have a strong dislike of Hy-Vee. It's important to understand that, or much of the significance of this dream will be lost. It's not even a rational feeling of animosity. It's sort of like the feeling you get when you are about to visit a new dentist. Of course that dentist isn't going to tear your face apart and pull all your teeth out. We know this. But he could.

Loathe, detest, abhor, despise. These are words that come to mind when I try to describe how I feel about their stores. The people who work at Hy-Vee are great, and they are all professionals. Except for a few who aren't. The problem I have, is that roughly 50% of the visits I've had at a Hy-Vee (not just one location, or even in the same city) have ended badly. Once I waited in a long line with all my groceries as people ahead of me argued with the cashier. When I finally got up to the counter and all of my groceries had been rung up ("rung up" sounds very old-timey, but who cares), that's when the dude at the register decided to tell me that the debit/credit card reader was not working. And I didn't have my checkbook with me. Or $64.00 cash. No wonder everyone ahead of me was so mad. Then there was the time that the lady in the bakery refused to wait on me. I still have no idea why. She waited on everyone else, but flatly refused to wait on me. There was the time that a grocery item wouldn't ring up. Instead of figuring it out, they asked if I really needed it. Sure, I just brought that up here for kicks. I didn't really need that lunch meat. Once in January or February I went out to Hy-Vee late at night to pick up some hot chocolate for Cynthia. They didn't have any. See how horrifying this is? Anyway, about my dream:

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I had to run to the store to pick up something. I could go to Walmart, but that's twice the distance as Hy-Vee and almost as bad. In this dream, I decided to go to Hy-Vee. As I walked across the parking lot toward the store, it was sunny out, but as usual there were ominous black storm clouds above the store. ONLY above the store. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as ghost-shaped plastic shopping bags blew past in the wind. The automatic door opened with a haunted house-like creak and I could hear a loud cackling echoing from somewhere in the store. The air was unnaturally cold when I walked in and for a second I wondered how badly we really needed another gallon of milk.

Suddenly, all of the Hy-Vee employees ran to the front of the store where I stood and sprang into song. In a carefully choreographed routine, they danced around and sang some show tune about friendly smiles and how much fun it can be to shop at Hy-Vee. It was a Hy-Vee musical! I couldn't tell if this was better or worse than my usual experience. They tap danced on the conveyor belts and even clambered up into a giant human pyramid for the finale. Colored confetti rained down from nowhere and colored lights swirled patterns across the floor.

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Then I woke up. How's that for weird? (Not the waking up part, the dream part.) Trust me, if I posted half of my dreams on here, no one would want to talk to me anymore.