Dreams

Since I've been pregnant I've had a lot of funky dreams. I don't know if I am having more than usual, or if they are just more vivid and memorable, or if I am simply remembering them because I wake up four times a night to use the bathroom.

When I was first pregnant, I started having what I'll call the "party" dreams. These dreams all were about good times and living it up. I'm pretty sure these dreams were a manifestation of the concerns I was having on how my life would soon be changing. More recently, I have moved on to the "fear" dreams. These dreams are horrific, and illustrate the subconscious concerns I am obviously having involving child birth, my safety, and the baby's safety. I don't talk about these dreams because they are completely disturbing and they make me wish I hadn't watched so many horror movies in the past, and that I haven't read so many horrible police and CPS reports.

Last night I had a new kind of dream. I am referring to this type of dream as the "absurdist" dream. I hope I have graduated from "fear" to "absurdist" permanently because it was pretty damn funny. Some background: Nick catches a lot of salmon, and he smokes a lot of salmon. He is famous in three counties and four states for his wonderful smoked salmon recipes. He has an old "L'il Chief" smoker he bought from some guy on Craig's List for $20. Lately, Nick has been looking at upgrading his smoker (did I mention I hate smoked fish and the smell of smoking the fish?), and last night he showed me the $250 smoker on the Cabela's website that he would like to procure. Clearly, given the state of things, we will probably not be spending $250 on a smoker anytime soon.

So that is the background to the dream I had last night. (This will be much funnier to those who know us both).

In my dream, I walked into our non-existent garage and Nick was in there packing up our baby mattress and crib (we just got one last week). I asked him what he was doing, and he told me, quite matter of factly, that a guy on Craig's List needed a crib and mattress, and he was going to trade ours for a new smoker. I asked him calmly if he was crazy, told him that we needed the crib, and where the heck would we put the baby? He said "Don't worry, this guy has an old twin mattress he's also giving me; we'll just put the baby on that." Just then the Craig's List guy showed up with the smoker and a mattress: I don't know who Craig's List guy was supposed to be: he was very skinny and hunched over with unwashed hair and an oversized coat. The mattress he dragged in with him was burned out, stained, and just plain nasty. I told Nick I would never put a baby on that thing and he again said, "Don't worry, my dad is going to help me repair it with old sheets."

It was at that moment that I woke up (because I needed to go to the bathroom). When I told Nick he simply relied "You have issues" (which of course I do).

Let's hear it for more absurd dreams!