Dream Weaver

Photo Credit: FiddlerJan/Morgue Files 

Last night I had a dream that sort of reflected real life mixed with stories I'm writing. There were several high-speed chase scenes involving the space shuttle, the Amish, and nuclear warheads. A spectacular crash ended in twisted wreckage. The horses escaped unscathed. The buggies weren’t so fortunate, and I’m afraid the Eiffel Tower needed all new lighting, but we saved the world. So there’s that.

All in a good night's dream, but I needed a shower.



The safe house sat at the end of a deserted country road – as they so often do. After the villains were carted away I returned there to freshen up. Because a three-story, unpainted, falling-down, dust-mite infested safe house is where you go to take a nice hot shower. Up three flights of dilapidated stairs sat the bathroom. I turned on the shower to wait for the water to heat. Before I climbed in my daughter came into the room with a dirty bowl. “Mom,” she said, “I can’t find the dishwasher.” I tightened my robe and remembered that the bathroom had one of those extra-small bathroom dishwashers so popular in dreams.

It took several minutes for me to figure out how to insert the lone bowl into the bathroom dishwasher – it was a type I’m unfamiliar with. My daughter figured it out, which was probably the most realistic part of the dream. Yes – the shower water was still heating up, yes we were washing one bowl in the dishwasher, but that’s all that would fit. Bathroom dishwashers tend to be on the small side. My daughter opened the bathroom door to leave, backed back in and shut it quickly.

“Mom! It’s the man with the hoodie! He’s been sneaking around the house all day! I meant to tell you!” I thought that bad guy had gone down in the space shuttle Amish buggy crash. Dang! Plot twist! There was no lock on the door, and the floorboards creaked with each step as he approached. “What should we do, Mom?” Neither of us had our cell phones (like that would EVER happen). The only weapon we could come up with was a Costco-size bottle of shampoo and conditioner. We decided to squirt it all over the bathroom and at least slow him down slipping and sliding. If you can’t stop a villain you can at least make him work for it.  

Suddenly I remembered something and turned to my daughter. “Daughter,” I said. “This scenario is either a story I’m plotting out or a dream. Either way that means I can do whatever I like – even if it ruins the book.”

So I hurried into the hall and shrunk the bad guy down to the size of a mouse. I carried him into the bathroom and flushed him down the toilet – after making fun of his skinny jeans a bit. All bad guys need a small dose of humiliation at the end, don’t you think?

"Turn him normal size when he gets into the septic tank." My daughter suggested as he swirled away.



I think maybe she's going to be a writer too.

How about you? Any dreams you'd like to share? And do you think it would be worse for the bad guy to be mouse-sized or full-size in the septic tank?