Pickles & Dimes

I had a horrific nightmare last night that was so realistic I could describe in great detail the perfectly manicured mustache of the policeman named Bob who shined his flashlight into our basement window while searching for an intruder. The fear of being told, “There’s someone in your house…or your yard…we’re not sure - stay put!” was so realistic that Jason finally woke me up after I had screamed “No!” a few times at the top of my lungs.

That was kind of him, even though I completely fell back into the nightmare and found myself being shockingly startled by either the intruder or trigger-happy policemen as I wandered through various hallways and corners of the house.

When Jason’s alarm finally went off and shocked me awake for good, I was exhausted and adrenaline-twitchy. As he kissed me goodbye, he asked, “Were you having a nightmare earlier?”

“Yeah,” I murmured sleepily, eyes half shut. “I dreamt someone was in the house, but we didn’t know where.”

“Huh,” he said, as he left the bedroom on his way out. “That’s funny. When I woke up this morning, the basement light was on.”

Then he skipped merrily away to work, while my eyes popped wide open and my bloodstream became infused with a lethal dose of old-fashioned, cold-temperature Fear.

I woke up this morning and as I was making the bed approximately 4.7 seconds later, I tugged mightily on the comforter, which was supporting 18 pounds of feline paperweight. Upon losing my grip on the comforter, my left thumb rammed spectacularly against the wooden headboard. The wooden headboard then returned the favor by pushing back on my thumbnail, in the opposite direction, so that I was immediately greeted by a giant pool of blood underneath my nail.

Then I forgot that today was “Everyone Who Owns a Vehicle Drive Into Downtown Minneapolis” Day and was nearly 30 minutes late to work, as I sat idling on the 4th Street Bridge for close to 27 minutes (Note: my entire commute is typically less than 9 minutes).

So ever since this morning, I have been homicidally trigger-happy and glaring slit-eyed at everyone and everything in my path. Not even my desk accessories are immune: (”Oh, what’s that, Mr. Stapler? You don’t feel like dispensing staples? How about after I pound you repeatedly against my desk? Feeling cooperative NOW?!?”)

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In non-complainy news, I am a huge fan of the show “Heroes.” Man, I wish I could teleport. Although being the girl who never gets injured would be cool. I’d be a hit at parties: “Wanna see me and my stapler duel to the death?”