In the Virtual Bank Line

I had to babysit for my cousin. In real life she's an adult, but in the dream she was about 8 and spoiled rotten. I was trying to get her to clean her house, but she wanted to get more and more toys out. I was taking them away from her and telling her that she could either clean her room or sit in the corner. She went to get out more toys, and I picked her up and plunked her down in the corner. I was MAD.

So, my cousin was howling in the corner and my sister came over. The rest of the family was hanging out down the street and were going out somewhere, so she came over to hang out with me while they were out. She wanted to play with my cousin, and encouraged the girl to get toys out, and I hit the roof. I yelled at her that our cousin was in time out for the very same infraction, and that she should be in time out too. My sister gamely went and stood in the corner, looking properly apologetic.

Just then I looked out the window and saw my family walking by wearing matching Xmas sweaters that looked hand-knit in really bright colors with crudely rendered cartoon animals on them. They were hideously ugly. The only one who was not wearing the sweater was the Pirate. He was wearing red plaid long cutoffs, black low-top Converse sneakers with white socks, a wife beater and a black denim jacket covered with studs and chains. He was riding his long skateboard and basically looked like an overgrown suburban punk. His hair had been cut with everything below the tops of his ears shaved off, and everything above the tops of his ears cut in a long sort of birds-nest style, with one long fringy layer of hair that covered everything had been badly bleached blond. It looked horrible, and I couldn't understand why he would do such a thing. He was walking next to a girl who looked to be in her late teens or early twenties, and I went outside and called to him and he stopped and turned around, and so did the girl. The rest of the family kept walking.

I asked him what he had done to his hair, and he asked me in a taunting tone of voice "Why? Don't you like it?" while shooting an "I told you so" look at the girl. I said no, I thought it looked horrible. He and the girl grinned at each other as though sharing some private joke, and he bowed his head to touch his forehead to hers affectionately. I was inexpressibly hurt and just walked away.

I went back into the house, and my sister had gotten herself and my cousin ready for bed and cleaned the house up. I was very grateful, and we went to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up because I couldn't sleep, so I opened up my laptop. My Yahoo messenger opened automatically, and the Pirate had evidently left his on and left his webcam on, because I could see an image of him and the girl asleep in my bed. I felt very sad again, and just shut the computer off.

In the morning, I had to go to work at a restaurant run by Florence Henderson. My sister had to get herself to the airport to get home. Peaches was with me, and she was going to stay with my mother for the day. For some reason, the bunch of us started out by walking down the highway. My sister and I turned to go one way that would lead us to my work, where my sister was going to call a cab, and Peaches ended up going straight on. She was stomping off purposefully, and stamped very deliberately on a small child's blue suede dress shoe that had been lost by the side of the road. I again felt very sad watching her walk away from me down the dangerous road, but she knew where she was going and what to do, and I knew that she would be okay.

I get to the restaurant, and it's a sort of B and B that's run by Florence Henderson. It's got a sort of TV theme, so the downstairs dining room has pictures of celebrities in it. I go upstairs because I'm supposed to be changing sheets on the beds. My sister comes with me, bids me goodbye and then leaves to catch her plane. I thank her for spending time with me, and we go downstairs.

Florence Henderson is there, and she's in the kitchen screaming at the staff. "WE DON'T PUT SPICES IN THIS FUCKING FOOD, GODDAMN IT! THIS IS FOOD FOR WHITE PEOPLE! I DON'T WANT TO SEE OR HEAR ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE! WHITE PEOPLE! DO YOU HEAR ME?" The staff and I are staring at each other in shock. We can't believe that she's saying this. Later she capitulates by telling us that we can put a picture of Gary Coleman in the dining room with the other TV celebrities, but THAT'S ALL.

I go upstairs and start stripping the beds, which are covered with layers and layers of blankets. The girl who's working with me and I stand on either side of the beds, loosen the layers of blankets, and then throw them into a giant pile to be taken to the laundry. Before we start making the bed again, I decide to go downstairs.

I go outside the building, and now we're in downtown San Francisco. Our restaurant/hotel is right next to some sort of weight loss clinic where the clients live onsite and all wear white togas. They mill around in and around this place, and you can hear from the outside the rhythmic clapping and low chanting of some sort of group attitude-improving exercise (think Amway meeting). The funny part is that there is a group of homeless people in a doorway just outside, and they're all staring in the direction of the building and chanting insulting slogans in time to the clapping. I can't help but laugh.

A good friend of mine is coming down the street on her way to lunch. She and I start walking together and she looks at all the women milling around in white togas and starts complaining about her own weight. She is about 5' 9" with medium-length dark blonde hair that's done up in a perm of big curls that looks very midwest. She's on the chunky side, but she looks fine, and I tell her so.

"Don't patronize me," she said. "Sure, I'm not a gigantic blob, but I know that I'm overweight and that I'd both look and feel better if I lost the weight. Your telling me that I look fine is just insulting."

I felt bad because I knew it was true. I wasn't trying to be insulting, I was just trying to be supportive. But she had a good point.

"I look at these women here," she went on. "I see that at least they're doing something about their problem. Yeah, you and I both know that they're going to end up right back where they were, but for now, they're doing something. I'm not even doing that much."

And we went walking on.
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The funny thing is that some really emotionally powerful things happened in this dream, but none of them caused a big emotional spike. Even seeing the Pirate sleeping with someone else just made me feel sort of sad, not angry.