Monday, March 22, 2010

Sleeping in a cot outside and carrying around a formica tabletop

It's nighttime near the Ohio house and I'm going to bed in a cot on the sidewalk at the end of our street. I know there's a new neighbor I've not met in the house next to the sidewalk. I can't sleep. My mom wants us to meet, he's the son and about my age. While I'm trying to sleep, he comes out and introduces himself, giving me a gift of three pill bottles. I open one and spill all the sleeping pills out into a puddle of milk on the sidewalk. As I put them back in the bottle, I take several pills that have begun to crumbles in the milk. I worry I might have taken too many.

I wake up in the cot which is now on the side of a parking lot. There is a computer game I've been trying to play - the object of the game is to press a button as soon as a squiggly line on the screen changes. I make a version of the game out of a pile of white powder by dividing the pile in half and dropping a penny to complete an electrical connection between the two piles in lieu of pressing the button. There are people getting into their cars to go to work and I hide my game so I won't have to explain what I'm doing.

I'm at "work" which is more like a high school. I'm carrying around a formica tabletop. There is a new employee, an attractive redhead. She is talking to me about how she's disappointed that I don't trust her and I'm trying to explain it's only because I just met her and she can't expect me to trust someone I don't know. We part and I go to an underground cafeteria where I realize I've left my table top. The new neighbor is there and as I look for the tabletop, I explain the encounter with the new employee to the new neighbor I'd met earlier.

I see two women examining my tabletop along side an almost identical tabletop. I explain to them that one of them is mine and they ask how they can know it's mine. I have them look at the under side where there is writing and geometrical figures drawn in magic marker. I'm looking for where it has my name on it and I find it, but my name is spelled wrong. Instead of pointed out my misspelled name, I point to the name "John", which is my dad's middle name and tell them, "That's my dad's name." They accept my explanation and I walk away with my tabletop, telling them I intend to spray paint over all the writing and write something on it that clearly indicates it's mine.

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