I'm sitting on the ground, my legs stretched out in front of me. The woman stops in front of me and says, "Nice socks!"
"Thanks!" I say.
"Are your socks pink?" she asks.
"Yes, yes they are. I have a dozen pairs of pink socks."
"Awesome! Have you been to see the crocodile Lady yet?"
"No," I sigh wistfully. "But I've always wanted a handbag or a purse made from their hide. I love alligators."
No, I'm not on drugs, or having some kind of an acid-induced flashback. Sunday night, I woke up about every 40 minutes or so because I was having the most vivid dreams.
The Crocodile Lady is standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorpost. She's wearing a ratty old dress and an apron over top of it. The apron is dingy and grease-stained, and the pocket on the left is torn. Her hair is in pink rollers, and she looks world-weary. The cigarette dangling from her lips is mostly ash, but it defies gravity by refusing to fall.
"Well?" she says.
I'm nervous. I didn't think she'd actually be here. The guy standing to my left, just out of my line of sight, is the one who brought me here and actually wanted to come here. I'm not really sure what I'm doing here.
"Umm... can we... ummm... see the crocs?"
She sighs heavily. "No. I gave them away. You'll have to come back next week." She goes back into the rickety cabin and shuts the door.
I start to cry. "There, there," says my companion. "We'll get you a purse somewhere else."
"I love alligators," I sniff.
It's not like I wasn't exhausted or too tired to sleep. Every time I rolled back over, I'd drop off again. But it was that stupid wake-toss-turn-settle-sleep cycle that was driving me nuts.
I'm on a stretcher - it's one of those two-poles-and-canvas affairs, like you see on old episodes of M*A*S*H. I'm tied down so I don't fall off. I'm looking around, trying to figure out how I got here. "How did I get here?" I ask the paramedic. I don't feel injured.
"See, your vehicle ran out of gas, and we have to take you away on a stretcher."
"Oh. That makes sense." It does - it makes perfect sense.
I ended up waking up around 5am, and going and watching TV for a while, until I had reset my brain. I fell asleep right away, but of course my alarm went off less than 20 minutes later.
Now I'm running in an uphill marathon, except that I'm not running. I'm passing out cups of cranberry juice to the runners. Except that no one wants cranberry juice. And it turns out that I have the wrong substance and I'm actually passing out cups of communion wine. My companion and the Crocodile Lady walk past. They ignore me.
"Hey - do you guys want some cranb-- I mean, communion wine?"
They look at me as if I don't know them. "Do you know who we are?" she asks.
"You make purses. With alligator skin."
"That's correct." She turns, and walks a little faster to catch up to my companion, who hadn't even stopped.
"I love crocodiles," I whisper.
Damn you, Pamie, for having an exciting weekend, and making strangely prophetic posts. They were the last thing I read before I went to bed, and I somehow suspect that my subconscious was still trying to process them when I fell asleep.
But I think your new site design is very lovely.
