We Should Have Walked But We Ran

For a lot of people, talking about dreams is a deal breaker.  I love dreams.  Even the really dark ones spark a deep wonder in me.  I enjoy hearing about other’s dreams and am fascinated with the mystery of them.  My interest doesn’t go so far as deep diving into trying to interpret them, but it can be an enjoyable conversation.    I’ve never been a good sleeper, but have always been a good dreamer.  After experiencing a couple of creepy in hospital sleep clinics, I’ve been told by the professionals that I do not delve into all of the stages of sleep, but instead only drift into the first stage - a semiconscious state, which can provide incredibly lucid dreams.  Clearly, I have not done a lot of intensive research of this phenomenon, but I can confirm that I do, and always have had vivid and memorable dreams.

A  couple of years ago I stopped working due to medical disability, yet my mind seems to want to continue work, because I continue to frequently have restless dreams involving work, which generally include not being able to accomplish tasks and finding myself overwhelmed.  Because I’m not currently employed these dreams generally are a strange mishmash of many of my previous jobs, which give them an added stress due to their incongruity. 

All through my high school years, which was an unbelievable amount of years ago, I worked at a small town pizza joint.  While working there, my fellow co-workers and I often discussed our shared dreams caused by working long hours there.  It turned out that many of us had similar nightmares about falling behind during the crazy busy stretches.  One that still haunts me is being afraid to fall asleep because of the danger of burning an oven full of pizzas.  Several times, I remember waking up in my bed actually physically trying to use a pizza paddle to remove finished pizzas from my headboard.  Aside from those moments, the job was mostly fun.  The place was run by teenagers and my co-workers were also friends and confidants.  We had our own lingo and our shared experiences made us a tight family of sorts.  Our stripes were made up of bleach stained jeans and rotten sneakers.

I still occasionally dream about that place.  Recently, as usual, I was having a restless night trying to sleep.  I gave up several times, got out of bed, and managed to accomplish some chores and watch TV to try to settle my thoughts before attempting sleep again.  Next thing I knew i was standing with my cane next to that pizza place’s salad bar, which stood across from the beverage bar.  It was all there: the ice packed around a couple of dozen plastic canisters of salad toppings, adorned with kale fronds, both stained with beet juice and dribbles of various dressings freckled with strange rust colored bacon bits.  

The layout of that place consists of two side entrances – one on each side of the restaurant, an upper balcony of booths that run along three quarters of the rectangle that makes up the seating area, an open lower area offers large group sized tables behind the salad bar and beneath the upper level, and it’s designed so that customers order their meal at one counter fronting the open kitchen, and then order beverages at a different counter further into the building.

 

In the dream, my cousin Nikki and her husband Brett (cousin-in-law?), who are successful purveyors of hospitality businesses in Moscow, ID, had purchased this long-time pizzeria and were holding a grand opening of sorts.  They were there near where I was standing, along with three of my old friends/former co-workers: Ken, Eric, and Jamie – all of us filled out and decaying at various stages from age.  Apparently, Sylvester Stallone was sitting in a booth above us, surrounded by a small posse of security.  He was a celebrity guest of honor.  The biggest celebrity invite since Annette Funicello had been a confirmed no show for a high school dance that was held in the restaurant back in 1987.

 

At that point, I noticed that the front counter was empty of customers and the pizza maker and oven runner were folding pizza box flats into their finished state.  They were creating an impossibly tall stack, so that anyone trying to access one to put a finished pizza into will most likely knock the entire stack over.  This had been common practice back in my days of employment.  I decided to go stand at the counter and let the two teenagers know about my approval of their shenanigans.

 

As I approached the counter, the teenage girl who was there to take food orders, kind of made eye contact with me, before ducking down the hallway that takes one to the back are of the restaurant.

“Hey guys!” I stammered loudly, without warning, “Nice job with the Mega-Stack!”  I leaned into my cane with my right hand and waved my uncontrollable left hand in a useless effort to indicate that giant stack of folded pizza boxes.  “Just like we used to do!” I added, for unnecessary emphasis.  I hated every word that I had shouted.

The two guys looked at each other across the work table that divided them, instead of looking back at me, and after a pause, the pizza maker on the right, after a pause, while still maintaining eye contact with the oven guy, replied: “Thank you SIR.  I bet you got some tall stacks back in those days” 

The acerbity in his voice was exactly as it should’ve been and exactly how Ken, Eric, Jamie and I would have responded to such an invasion 30-40 years ago.  I spun slowly around and scooted back towards the small gathering of people standing on the main level below where Sylvester Stallone was holding court.  My cousin Nikki made eye contact with me, and as I approached, she asked me if the two guys had been rude to me, and looked prepared to scold them. 

“Not at all,” I responded.  They treated me, exactly as they should have, I looked back at the kitchen and the oven runner was tossing three pizza cutters into the air over the work table, as the pizza maker shouted out random instructions about how to juggle.