BY: JANA GREENE
My dream programming tonight: A playlist…
Dream 1: In a stadium of some kind. Decide in my dream that this is odd for someone who hates sports. Reckon that it must (obviously) be The Pigeon Olympics. Hey, Look! The clouds are raining birdseed! I wonder where the toilets are in this joint? *Spends remainder of weird dream ambling around The Clockwork Orange Stadium looking for a bathroom. Finds a street parade, box of Lucky Charms, and a single boot. No potty, though. *Queue anxiety attack.*
Dream 2: I am at college, which is weird because I never went to college. Lose the combination to my locker, which is weird because do you even have lockers in college (!?) Continue nightmare by individually try to open all 100 lockers on the hallway wall with increasingly full bladder. See high school crush, realize I’m wearing pantaloons and nothing else. Now I can’t find the bathroom. Every door I knock on is a classroom full of farm animals. Bless them, I’m distracting them from the studies, and doesn’t every donkey in America deserve a quality education? End up ducking into in a closet out of desperation that is housing a tractor, but still can not empty bladder. Too worried about rusting important farm equipment.
Dream 3: I’m at Disney World in Epcot partaking in French Fries of the World, which is kind of like when Epcot hosts that event where you walk around the “countries” sampling international wines, except not at all like that. I am carrying around two things: A glittery plastic packet of ketsup, and a roll of toilet paper, in case the unimaginable happens and a bathroom at Disney is out of toilet paper. Every sample location features a majestic, roaring waterfall. Holy cow, I need to pee. Ask costumed, licensed Disney Character where the bathroom is. They perform a weird skit pantomiming pulling down their invisible pants and squatting over a “toilet,” which is really just a manhole, so yeah, thanks a lot, Donald and Daisy. Sheesh. Everyone knows y’all don’t even WEAR pants. Experience inter-dream panic attack because surely I’m going to pee my pants in the Happiest Place on Earth, and I bet they don’t let people with wet pants ride to the top of the giant golf ball.
…
Okay, I’m REALLY awake now with extremely full bladder. Hobble to the real, actual bathroom wondering if this TOO is yet another dream and I’m about to pee in a potted plant or something. Peeing in actuality is a huge relief, but can I be honest? Pretty anti-climactic after all my adventures in dreaming.
Welcome to mid-life: You ALWAYS have to pee. Sleeping is impossible. Every single dream feels like the result of eating a whole bag of nacho Doritos before bed; and every dream features the quest for a bathroom, and ends with an an anxiety attack. It’s a real swell time.
*Sigh.
Musings of a Gypsy Soul 