Crazy co-workers

My co-worker Brent called me up and told me that he needed some help because he was going on a big date the next day.  He asked if I would come on the date with them to make sure that he didn't mess it up.  I said that I would, and then he said that he wanted me to coach him the day before so that he knew what to say, so I needed to play in a golf outing with him in Ottumwa.  I was getting ready to head to Ottumwa when I realized that my wedding was the next day so I had a few things to take care of.  By the time I got to Ottumwa, the golf outing was almost over, so Brent decided that he should just go to a bar in Des Moines while I gave him advice.  As soon as we got to the bar, he immediately got food poisoning and had to go home.  After I dropped him off at home, I went back to the bar where my family had arrived for the wedding and wanted to give me a fancy bridal shower.  I told them all that it would have to wait because I had to go to work.

When I got to work I could smell something funny and realized that there was a carbon monoxide leak in the building.  I went downstairs to investigate and found that all the buildings had been evacuated except for mine because the alarm didn't go off.  I went back upstairs to tell everyone to leave, but no supervisors were at work so no one would leave the building.  I went to my co-worker Anna's desk and started asking her lots of questions but she was being very vague and wouldn't answer them.  I couldn't figure out what was going on until another co-worker, Duane, walked by and told me that Anna had quit but she didn't want me to know.  I convinced Anna to leave the building and walk around with me.  During the walk, I started asking her lots of specific questions about the future.  Finally I cracked her and she said "Fine, I didn't want you to know, but I got a new job."  I asked when she was leaving and she said "I'm not telling, and I won't tell you where I'm going either."  She got in her car and drove away.

John goes to Target

Matt and I were on our way to Target to register for our wedding when he suddenly realized that he had to go out of town on business.  He called John, his best man, to go to Target with me in his place.  He gave John very strict instructions to pretend to be Matt though, because Target will arrest you if you register with a fake groom and he didn't want to bail us out of jail.  When I met John in the Target parking lot, I gave him some quick instructions about how to act like Matt and we went inside.  We were assigned a registry consultant to walk around the store with us and use the scanner gun because they wouldn't allow us to do it ourselves.  John panicked and started saying things like "you and Matt need this" and "Matt would really like this."  I kept kicking him to get him to stop but he was clueless.  Finally he took me over to the section of fringed purses and wanted me to pick on out for Matt.  The registry consultant started to question this, so I ran out of the store leaving John to defend himself.

I ran all the way to my brand new office which was in an architecture firm.  I had never seen it before so I was very excited, but when I got there I realized they had just put up a desk in the storage closet and I had no window.  I saw that there was another empty office in the corner that did have a window, so I decided to army crawl to the corner.  When I got in there, someone had taken a bunch of my personal items from my house and scattered them all over the floor.  I found a dried rose that Matt had given me last year and it was crushed and laying in the trash.  This made me very angry so I yelled out that I was quitting and walked out the door.

Allison's hideaway

A bunch of my friends were at dinner and my friend Allison started telling us about this new apartment she was renting in Ottumwa.  We all wanted to see it, so we decided to take a speedboat down the Des Moines River to see it.  When we got to Ottumwa, she pointed to the water purification plant and told us that they had converted the entire building into apartments/lofts.  The only way to get in was from the river, so we docked the boat and went inside.  When we got in there, she told us that each tenant got one floor of the building, but she had the top three that were all one unit.  As we walked around inside, I realized that there were no doors or walls, just futons and couches laying around everywhere.  There also weren't any kitchens or bathrooms, just living spaces.  The majority of the tenants were men in their 40's who were all passed out on their futons in the middle of the afternoon. 

We walked up a flight of stairs and Allison informed us that to get to her penthouse, you had to climb a series of ladders.  I suddenly realized that I was carrying my cat, Autumn, and that I was going to have to carry her up all these ladders.  I put her in the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt and started to climb.  We ended up climbing up one very long ladder, down the hall to a short ladder, around the corner where we had to climb DOWN a ladder to get to a secret floor of the building.  This room was Allison's living room.  She had an old couch and a huge TV.  I wanted to stay there but she told us that we had to see her room on the next floor.  We started climbing up the last ladder which was in a very narrow passageway.  Because of the cat in my pocket I almost didn't fit and I got a little stuck and had to force myself through.  I was very worried about Autumn, but when we got into the room she started running around and was fine. 

In Allison's room she had a library full of every book or magazine we could ever want, a variety of movies to watch, and a stockpile of snacks.  Katie decided that she was just going to live in the room, but I knew that eventually I had to get home to feed my other cat, Louie.  I started to panic because I wasn't sure I could get back down all those ladders while holding Autumn.  I mentioned this to Allison, hoping that she knew of an easier exit, but she informed me that people weren't intended to get back out once they entered.  I tried to pick Autumn up so we could sneak down the ladder but she wouldn't come back to me.  So I sat in the corner and cried.

The longest dream ever

I was hanging out with my aunt and uncle and I went out to run some errands.  I decided to walk past the boat store and impulsively decided to buy a speed boat.  I proudly drove the boat home through the local canals and when I pulled up at my dad's house, my uncle informed me that I didn't know how to drive a boat or tie it up at the dock.  I kind of panicked, but decided I would just drive it back to the boat store and have them teach me.  Luckily, I found a water conveyor belt that would guide me back to the boat store. 

Once I got there, three elderly women in ball gowns helped me tie my boat up to the dock, and a large British man explained how to drive the boat.  Feeling confident, I untied my boat and headed home.  Suddenly I realized that Matt was going to be very angry that I bought this boat, and I probably shouldn't be making such large purchases without telling him.  And then I remembered that last week I had bought a jet ski at a garage sale and I still hadn't told him.  We have nowhere to store either of these purchases, so I decided that I would just have to keep my house as a nautical storage center after we got married.

I went home to the house that I shared with my co-worker Anna.  She was busy so I went out to eat at When Pigs Fly, my favorite BBQ place.  I was sitting in the back room when the waiter informed me that my friend David was eating in the other room with his family, and that his wife really needed some plastic baskets that they deliver the sandwiches in.  I took her a stack and she was so happy that she told me to join them for dinner.  David had just gotten a digital camera that instantly projected his pictures onto paper coasters (like they have at bars) so he kept taking pictures of all of us and giving us the coasters.  Finally dinner was over, so I headed home, but David chased me through the parking lot because I forgot my coaster.

When I got home, Anna wanted me to see this great new game that she had discovered.  She told me it was a video game called Cut the Dog, and you had to find the dog smoking a cigarette and grab it out of the dog's mouth.  But if there was no cigarette, you had to cut the dog's hair.  I tried it a few times on her iPod, but then she informed me she was taking it up a notch.  She opened the oven and had a bunch of puppies in there with cigarettes that she would grab out of their mouths.  I thought that was the most disturbing thing I'd ever seen, so I went downstairs.

I entered the living room and found my friend Dan hanging out with Fred Hoiberg.  Fred was getting ready to leave, but he pulled out his backpack and asked us if we would like to buy a Tim Floyd jersey from him for $90 each.  We both wanted one, so I tried to log in to Matt's corporate bank account to pay for them, but I couldn't remember the password.  I called Matt and he refused to give it to me, so I got very angry because Fred was about to leave.  I asked him to wait a moment and I walked outside through the wading pool so I could talk to Matt without Fred hearing me.  I told him how important this was and Matt burst into tears because he couldn't remember the password and he'd been trying to keep anyone from finding out so he didn't get fired.  I was angry because I realized I'd have to pay for the jersey myself, so I hung up and went into my childhood bedroom in Ottumwa.  I hid down there pouting until I heard my co-worker Heather saying goodbye to Fred, so I knew I was running out of time.  Before I went upstairs, I read my horoscope in a magazine which told me to pick two of my friend's spouses to be very mean to today and pick another one to do something nice for.  I was just deciding who would fit into each category when I woke up.

Evergreens

I had been hired by a church to be their sanctuary decorator for weddings, funerals, etc.  My primary responsibilities were to arrange for decorations on the altar and the end of the pews.  We had an event coming during the weekend that was very important to the church, so they informed me that if I didn't do exactly what I wanted, they would not only fire me but I would also never be allowed back into the church.  However, they didn't tell me what the event was or what the people wanted for decorations, so I was on my own.  I decided to use evergreens on the ends of the pews, but I didn't have any way to affix them to the pews, so I was trying to tie them up with string.  They were all crooked and uneven and the event was about to start, so I knew that I had failed.  I left the church and got on my yacht were I was instantly in the middle of the ocean by myself.

*This is really only half of the dream.  I have absolutely no recollection of what happened after I got on the boat.

Baby Chloe

Matt and I had just had a baby name Chloe, and we wanted to show her off so we took her to my church in Ottumwa.  We walked around showing her to people, but then would sit her in a chair while we talked to people and she kept sliding off so I decided I should just hold her.  Then another girl who was in my youth group walked in with an even younger baby boy, trying to steal my thunder.  I walked over to compare babies and mine was very cute while hers was awkward looking and ugly.

Satisfied, we left Ottumwa and headed to my friends Kristi and Nate's house.  I had brought my cats over and while they ran around, I decided to give Chloe a bottle.  My friend Kati was there, and she took the bottle away from Chloe while it was still half full and said she was taking it to Target.  I asked her not to take away the bottle while Chloe was still using it, but she said she needed it so that she could buy the right bottles to have on hand when I visited her house.  I told her that I would bring my own bottles and that I was more concerned about Chloe eating right now than Kati preparing for my next visit, but she didn't want to hear that and she left. 

Chloe was screaming because she was hungry, and I asked Kristi and Nate if they could help me and they said they agreed with Kati that I shouldn't be concerned about feeding my baby.  I decided I needed to go home, so I set Chloe on the chair to chase after my cats and take them home.

The bus depot

I was driving back from camp with my friend Cristan when she became very, very angry at me. I couldn't figure out what I had done so we stopped at the bus depot where we ran into a girl we went to high school with. She told me that I had offended Cristan with my swervy driving and I should probably leave her alone for awhile.

Luckily I looked across the bus depot and my cousin Beth was sitting there in a business suit. I said hello to her and she told me I needed to come with her to the conference call she was about to sit in on. I was a little self conscious because I was under dressed, but I walked into the bus depot's conference room to join the meeting. The room was full of men in suits who were intensely discussing something. One of them stopped the meeting and asked where my padfolio was. I told him that I didn't have one because I didn't know about the meeting. Beth told me that wasn't good enough and asked me to leave immediately.

So I wandered around the depot for awhile, couldn't find Cristan, and returned to my swervy driving.