Thursday, September 29, 2005

Expect The Unexpected Dream

We continue to have bizarre dreams. I know, I know, not another freakin' blogger blathering on about their personal dreams, the symbolisms, the blah, blah, blah. Who cares? If you don't, then move along, because here it goes...

Yesterdays dream was a work dream. I'm sitting at my desk at the bookstore, it's old school; on a raised platform behind the cashwrap so as to appear like the Queen God O' Books (I like it). Anyhoo, a song comes on the radio that I absolutely hate, but the radio, for whatever reason, is not on my desk, but down by the registers. I ask my hippie-chick employee to "turn off that fricken song", I hate it and she replies "No, it's not a bad song, it's a good song." After giving her the evil eye (Bush won't know his eye is missing at all) I asked her to turn it off again. She laughs at me, I throw a little hissy fit and get all pissy with her and shout "You're so fucking stubborn!" and promptly awake to my alarm clocks' annoying little song. I thought the song in the dream sounded familiar, damn clocks. I rarely dream about employees, let alone work and didn't think much of it until later in the day when my hippie-chick employee took it a step too far when confronting a shoplifter.

My city is a former middle-class neighborhood of Seattle. As the population increased, it incorporated and eventually became a city unto itself. Let's just say this once middle-class city, with it's Nordstrom and cozy waterfront neighborhoods, has become a lower middle class swampland. It's not the city's fault entirely. Boeing downsizing and then eventually leaving altogether has trashed most cities that once depended on them. The mall that was once a carpeted, chic, boutique laced funky wonder became a place for Gang activity and after a shooting occurred 12 years ago, it has been downhill since. Nordstroms left 10 years ago and now this city will have two Wal Marts within a five mile radius. Make it a 15 mile radius and you've got 3 fucking Wal Marts, one of which is open 24 fucking hours-a-day. Crime is rampant, especially lately, the economy is shit, the cost of living outrageous, and unemployment is out of control, so needless to say, my city is getting ghetto.

I've always been the go-to girl for shaping up a store with high loss. I take little shit from anyone, I don't ass kiss and I have a zero-tolerance policy for fuckers that take my books without paying for them. At times, I go above and beyond but I know my limits -- once they are out of the mall, I let security or the police try to get them.

Well, yesterday, my young hippie-chick employee ran after a guy who set off the alarm. She was with security, but once the guy hit the city sidewalk, security could do nothing more. Ever persistant, or dare I say stubborn, Hippie-chick kept asking the guy to return to the store or show the contents of his bag and he promptly belted her twice in the face, breaking a tooth and surly bruising her sweet little hippie-chick face. Admirable, but stupid as fuck. Security had witnessed the episode and promptly called the police who apprehended the weak-ass-girl-hitting-fucktard. My afternoon was littered with legalities and blah, blah. By the end of my shift, we found out the fucker didn't even have a book, although he did have a bunch of Target's merchandise, to which Target's shamed plain-clothed security people thanked Hippie-chick profusely. Oy. This guy will go away for a long while and hopefully, our company will still pay to fix her tooth.

Was my dream a precursor for the day? I'd say hell, yeah. Like I said I never dream about work or employees and when I do, it's usually about a confrontation I need to have with them and, possibly in the depths of my mind, I knew I needed to talk with Hippie-chick about being less aggressive with shoplifters. It's not safe and not worth losing a tooth or, worse, your life for. We fight to stay alive in a box-store world. Yeah, they're shutting our ass down in a few months, but we take pride in our jobs in the "little book store that could." We have at least one freaky incident a week in the ghetto mall and we've become accustomed to it, but this time it got us back and that's a goddamned shame.

Last nights' dreams weren't quite precognitive as much as twisted; I'm at a party, drink in hand and I'm talking with party goers, when I hear "Cupie, come sit by me." I look at the guy. I don't know him that I can remember, his mannerisms and voice tell me he's a raging Queen (I attract 'em, don't know why, it's a mystery). So, I sit by the fella and I instantly recall who he is: Tom Delay, and he's a little bent out of shape after being indicted for being a naughty little Republican. I try to tell him to lighten up, he did a bad bad thing and now he has to pay the piper to which he said "Cupie, I know you're right, but I'm Tom Delay!!" To which I said "Dude, you are so gay. Live true, little dude, walk the talk and try not to be such a whiney little bitch." Then the dream morphed into me playing Larry David's wife in "Curb Your Enthuasiam." I think I just wanted to do him. I'm insane; a wrinkly old cantankerous bastard and I wanted to do him. I didn't. I woke up to a new day; a day of baseball (we'll lose, but I've earned a beer or three I think) and a day of yet another damn mammogram. Twist my tit, thank-you-very-much! How I do enjoy being a girl, a manager and a woman of tweaky brain waves. It's exhausting but somebody has to do it. Have a wonderful day folks and always expect the unexpected, because hurricanes happen, shoplifters will attack, the righteous and arrogant "evil doers" --republican or not--will be indicted and; personally, no offense, but I don't want to see you in my dreams.