Last night, I had one of those dreams where everything was as it should be, but it wasn't.
In my dream I had arrived at work an hour early, so I decided to just punch in and get to work in the Natural Foods department. While searching for the pallet in back, I found that the back storeroom had tripled in size, with elaborate walls and aisles filled with product that I'd never heard of before, or stuff I had only heard of on TV, like RonCo Pepsi and Duff Beer; we even had that cornballing machine that George Sr. shilled on Arrested Development.
I walked through to the other side of the backroom, where the backstock for the organic food was usually kept, but instead bumped into two gay guys I vaguely know who now worked there. One was an immensely cute guy from my GLBT History class, a theatre major who kept his hair long and grew muttonchops for the first half of the semester for some period play the drama club was putting on. I didn't realize how cute he was, and how brilliantly green his eyes were until after Spring Break, after a haircut, a shave, and he stopped dressing in layers. The other guy was from online, back at school, who was really into being spanked and pain. We never did anything because his scene was too weird for me: he wanted to roleplay like I was the dad and he was the son who got bad grades, so I was to spank him until I was able to get his ass to bleed, then rape him so he learns his lesson, at which point I turned him down before he could continue the scenario. Roleplay is fun, but I'm not into family play or rape scenes, and spanking can be interesting, but I'm not into drawing blood. Plus he was kinda chubby in the pics he sent, and even chubbier in my dream.
The two of them were holding hands, and wearing the same uniform as everone else except instead of varying shades of blue, their outfits were a lavender with dark purple trim. They kept looking for a box with the tuna salad, and when they asked me, I said I had no idea. Neither of them recognized me.
I kept going, and went out the doors to the back of the store, only to find that there was a random checkout lane at the back of the store, where the bakery department used to be. A small, wirey woman was checking out small bags of produce,and the guy working at the store (whom I didn't recognize) was calling out the PLU codes for each item he rang up like a town crier: "4011! (bananas) 4065! (green peppers) 4048! (limes) 3107! (green apples)"
I kept walking, past where the Natural Foods department usually is, but in its stead now was a giant sculpture that looked like something Gehry would have designed.
I bumped into the store manager, and he told me there was a problem with the salad bar and he could use my help. We speedwalked over there, and found that the salad bar had been mysteriously replaced with a ship from a children's museum, with a ramp, child-sized hats, a steering wheel built for small hands, and instructional posters on the walls of the deck, explaining the difference between starboard and port.
The manager's jaw drops in a cartoon-like fashion. "Well Jesus Christ. If I were a novelist I'd be taking notes right about now."
At which point, someone called my phone (a wrong number) and I woke up.
So, is it a sign, or is it just a sign that I ate too much sugar last night?
(I'm leaning towards the latter.)
