Hurry Up and Wait

I had a strange dream the other morning. I woke up then went back to sleep, which seems to be when most of my bizarre dreams happen.

My whole immediate family were living in my mom’s house, which is biggish, but not big enough for eleven people. I mean, there’s only on bathroom, for crying out loud. Totally ridiculous. Also, my ex-step-father was living there, in the present. I have no idea why.

In my dream, we all went to the local Renaissance fair, held in the town’s historic district. ALL OF US. At the fair, my niece disappeared. We thought she’d wandered off, but we came to the conclusion she’d been abducted. We tried to call the police, to report it, but I was the only one with a cellphone, and my phone had disappeared. We finally put two and two together and decided that my niece had grabbed my phone, as she was being abducted, because she’s a smart cookie that way.

So instead of calling the police, we decided to go home and wait for my niece to call us. Which she eventually did. And when she called, all she wanted to do was discuss random minutia, like what the kidnapper had fed her for lunch and what color she wanted to dye her hair next. I finally got her attention by telling her that she was going to run down my phone battery, if she didn’t hurry up and tell us where she was.

She told us that the Magenta Lady had kidnapped her, because she wanted a girl of her own. I have no idea who the hell the Magenta Lady is, but in my dream it made perfect sense, and it was actually a good thing. We knew the Magenta Lady wouldn’t hurt my niece. Also we knew where to find her. Also also, this information made rescuing my niece less of an emergency.

And that meant that the second half of the dream involved my whole family, who were all living in one house, trying to decide whose room my niece would stay in, after she was rescued. (Um, how about the one she was staying in before she was kidnapped? PLOT HOLE, AHOY!) After much arguing, my room was chosen. That meant that I had to clear out a whole bunch of crap, because I am–in dreams as in real life–a junior-league hoarder.

We spent all day boxing up junk and carrying it down to the car, to take to Goodwill, at which point my ex-step-father had a damn melt-down about how long it was taking us. He wanted us to hurry the hell up. Okayfine, but every time I took a box of junk down to the car, my mom had to go through it and take 2/3 of the things back out again. I yelled right back at my ex-step-father that it was not my fault we were late. I was bringing things out of the house as fast as I could, and my mom was taking them back to the house just as fast. It was like packing sand down a rat giant hole.

So then my ex-step-father stomped back into the house and locked himself in the bathroom. At which point I woke up.

That last part of the dream, where my ex-step-father yelled at everyone for taking too long to get in the car, and then having a melt-down and stomping back into the house and locking himself in the bathroom? Every. Single. Morning. He would yell at us for making him late for work, and then as soon as we were all in the car, he’d go back in the house and use the bathroom. Totally ridiculous, and it used to piss me right the hell off.