Caterwauling

So I had this dream the other night. A good one. Not like the nightmare I had last night in which my workplace turned into a scene from “Nine to Five” in which I was assigned to protect the Dabney Coleman character and act as his decoy. *shudder* The horror! No, I had a good dream. A dream dream.

In my slumber, I saw someone I met very recently. Someone I rather liked and thought maybe-more-than-a-little-bit about. Someone I wouldn’t normally have had the balls to approach.

The dream sequence was pretty clear, meeting up, hanging out, time passing and then crossing paths again. In the dream, I remember hoping that he’d talk to me the second time around. I figured that if we didn’t find a reason to bump into each other, well hell, maybe we’d end up in the same place again someday. Maybe.

The thing about my dreams? I am completely in control of them. And I somehow thought to myself, “Hey dumbass, don’t lose this one. Don’t count on fate to figure this out for you. He’s a boy — he has no idea what you’re thinking.”

And in the dream, I looked at him. And I thought, hey, what’s the worst that can happen? That he’ll tell me to go away? That he’ll laugh? That it will make for an awkward moment? Big whoopin’ deal. Seriously.

“But think of what you’ll be missing out on if you don’t,” my dream inner voice told me.

Perhaps it was because I knew I was dreaming, but I took the chance. And all I know is that I wasn’t disappointed in my decision. At all.

And as such, I decided to apply my newfound rediscovered set of balls in “real life.”

To be continued. …

That would be, the maximum aggravation for the minimum price, my new slogan for TJ Maxx.

I hate that store with the fire of a thousand suns. But I love discount shopping. The only reason we went there yesterday was because Mom called from Pittsburgh to ask me to try to hunt for a rug she needed. (She needs two of everything. Don’t ask.)

Anyway, I didn’t find the throw rug but I did see a small carry-on case that I really needed. I’ve been carrying this silver-and-black duffel bag on planes, and it’s great but I can’t stick it atop my rolling suitcase. The new bag was $13 and the fabric matches my “good” suitcase.

So we were about ninth in line at a register. There were four other lines, equally long.

Our cashier was waiting on someone when she decided to, oh, LEAVE. In mid-transaction. She brushed past all of us, whining, “My finger hurts!”

The woman at the counter was all, “Did she just ABANDON me?”

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So I was sitting at the mechanic’s this morning, reading the WaPo, when this article whacked me over the head.

“Before Vacation, An Out-of-Office Experience”

As someone who rarely if ever takes vacations (as most of my disposable income is spent on retail therapy and, yes, car-related issues), I admit that I hate taking any time off. Because it seems like you’re already working X number of hours per week (X = a number greater than 40), but in preparation of skipping town (even for work-related reasons), that X variable increases by at least a third.

I’ve left the office past 10 p.m. and often lamented having to actually deduct eight hours of vacation time from the next day on my timesheet. I say this tongue-in-cheek, because I am also of the attitude of “What can you do?” but there’s a part of me that wonders how you can ever get that time back. But there’s a greater part of me that still doesn’t get everything done and frets about it during my “off” time.

Sometimes, I feel like mental vacations (i.e., those taken on the clock) are the only real reprieve we ever really get.

“Pre-vacation exhaustion and disengagement” is what some psychologists call it. Employers call it other names.

There’s also something interesting in the article that made me actually mentally pat myself on the back.

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