I remember one Chistmas Eve I was working very late. Everyone else had gone home and nearly all of the lights were out, but there I was, sitting alone at my desk, tippy-tapping on my keyboard. At some point some secretaries came by, dressed in cheerleader uniforms and wearing Santa Claus hats, singing Christmas carols and decorating trees. Their continual "Fa la la la la" and "Ho! Ho! Ho!" just about made me sick. Here I was working late on Christmas Eve and they couldn't understand why I was feeling so glum. Bah, humbug! Just then I realized that my radio was tuned to some really awful country station. They weren't playing the kind of country music I like. It was that really bad stuff. I tried to change the station but the dial wouldn't work. Then I tried to turn it off but that didn't work either. So I crawled under my desk and unplugged the damned thing. It was then that I realized that all of the radios on all of the desks were playing that same awful country music. It was driving me nuts. I went around to all the desks and tried to turn the radios off, but none of the dials were working. Finally I gave up, grabbed my jacket, and walked out. I marched down the stairs and headed toward the front door.
As I walked through the front door I was greeted by the worst blizzard that the world had ever known. It seemed like the entire world was one gigantic blizzard. Someone handed me a paper and the headline read that it was the worst winter ever in Phoenix Arizona. I was sure glad that I wasn't there. Then I noticed something else in the paper. There was an article claiming that my car had been stolen. They had a picture of it and everything. It was a big white car with fins on the back that looked like angel wings. I didn't remember ever owning a car like that. But if the newspaper said so, it must have been so. And I was really pissed that someone had stolen it. How was I ever gonna get home without my big beautiful car? I angrily kicked a big block of ice. Then, after nursing and cursing my sore toe, I started hobbling down the road toward town. And as I was heading down the road I just happened to see my car go by. It was Santa Claus and his henchmen who had stolen it.They were drunk and out taking it for a joyride. They made faces at me as they drove by. I think it might have been Santa Claus who'd given me the car in the first place, and now he'd taken it back. That didn't matter though. I was still pissed. And I tried my best to keep up with them as they sped toward town.
When I finally arrived downtown I noticed that my car was parked at a Dairy Queen. I guess Santa and his minions wanted some ice cream or needed something more to drink. As I was standing there, plotting how I was gonna steal my car back, a woman came up to me. She looked vaguely familiar. She'd been crying and told me she needed my help. Her daughter was in trouble. I followed her to her house and found a young girl lying in the front yard, shivering, under a blanket of snow. I brushed the snow off and helped her to stand up. Then I took off my leather jacket, the one thing that had protected me from the cold, and handed it to her. She put on the jacket, turned, and headed toward the house. I followed her. But as I walked in through the front door she walked out through the back door. I never saw her again. Nor my jacket neither. I decided to sit in the parlor for a while and warm up. It was a beautiful room with a fireplace and comfortable furniture. There was a man and a boy already in the room when I walked in. They were sitting near a coffee table and there was a stack of old record albums sitting on the coffee table. I got kind of excited and started sifting through them. Then I started telling the man and the boy about Hank Williams, Miles Davis, The Beatles, and others who'd made significant contributions to the history of music. The boy listened intently. He seemed to be really impressed by my knowledge. The man, on the other hand, didn't seem to care. He just sat there, his eyes filled with scorn, disagreeing with everything I said. He didn't seem to think that I knew anything. Finally I got up and walked out. I heard the woman ask as I was heading through the door, "Are you going back to Dairy Queen?" "Nah," I said, "I don't believe in Santa Claus no more, and I sure as hell don't want that car back." I dropped the newspaper in the snow and walked on.
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Reviewed by Mary Ann Willis
3/11/2019
It was fiction. Wanna know how I know? Because I've worn leather jackets before and not once was I ever warm, but I looked cool.😊
Last night I dreamed I was playing penny ante five card stud with Willie Nelson and another guy on an old rickety picnic table at an outdoor party. After three cards I had an ace up and another down and bet a quarter. They both called. But, for the fourth card they got the other two aces. (After four cards it was impossible for anyone to have a straight, flush, or full house. We each had more than one suit and three different cards not close enough together to make a straight. So, if either of them had a pair with their hole card, their fifth card could give them two pair or three of a kind. The best I could end up with was two pair with aces as my highest pair.) Willie opened with a nickel. I only had fifteen cents left and was trying to decide if I should raise or just call. I was thinking I should just call because I didn't want to scare them off. I could bet my last dime after the fifth card. Then I woke up, so I never found out if I won the hand or not.
In case you haven't figured it out, the first part of my original dream was about how I felt
about my job. Later on, Santa Claus represented God, the newspaper represented the Bible,
and the white car with fins that looked like angel wings represented my salvation. The woman
and her daughter represented my wife and daughter, and the man and the boy represented
my teen-age son who was, at the time, both a man and a boy. I have no explanation for it
but I had that dream many years before my conversion to atheism. Was I already beginning
to doubt? (Not being one who believes in precognition, I offer this explanation: I wrote my
story many years after I had the dream, so I may have altered it a bit to fit my interpretation.)
"Cling not to false hopes, no matter how cherished.
Disillusionment and acceptance eventually lead to enlightenment."
Roger T. Slug
That was some story! Bad after bad, until becoming worse. Certainly reads like some dreams that I've had where the plot changes very quickly and you move into another part or venue without resolving the first issue--weird.
I enjoyed the descriptive nature of it and am glad that I didn't dream that dream along with you.
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