Thursday, October 18, 2012

Working Girl

[Note: There are no images on this post.  That is because I Googled "Office Girl images" too close to Halloween, and now I need to get a double eyeball transplant to unsee what came up.]

Last night I had a dream that my supervisor from my last full time job (you know, the one I left almost 21 years ago after giving birth to my first child) called me up.  "Where are you?" he asked, annoyed.  "Why haven't you come back from maternity leave?"

So I said, "I'll be right there!" and hung up the phone.  My job!  Of course!  I'd forgotten.

"Larry!" I said, grabbing my purse.  "I have to go back to work.  It's been 20 years.  Can you bring Rachel to her tennis lesson?  I'm late."

Larry was annoyed.  "I can't," he said.  "You're supposed to do it." (Side note here: this is not really like Larry - he's a nice guy who wouldn't try to stand in the way of his wife's career, even a career that has been on a 2-decade-long hiatus.  Besides, he likes money.)

I called my supervisor back to tell him I'd be late.  But a local NPR talk show host picked up the phone instead and wouldn't let me leave a message.  He kept thinking I was trying to call in on his show.  It was very frustrating.  I mean, my first day back on the job!  I didn't want to make a bad impression. 

I gave up on the phone call and decided that, if I could only get out of this Home Depot elevator I seemed to be trapped in, I could still drive one state over to my old workplace and things would be all right.

Dreams are weird.

I woke up confused.  My job!  They want me back!  But wait - I have to get all the kids to the dentist this morning.  But what about my job?  Maybe LARRY could take them to the dentist. 

I don't know what to make of it.  All day I haven't been able to shake the feeling that I am expected back at work.  That I am playing hooky here at home...

Can I just blame the menopause for this?


13 comments:

  1. I have these Frustration Dreams all the time. I HATE THEM!

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  2. This is hilarious. So well-written, too. I could FEEL the frustration.

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  3. Are you me? This is totally the kind of dream I have, too. Last night I dreamed I was late for my college class, but I had forgotten where it was because it kept moving. I've been out of college for 20 (gulp!) years.

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  4. Dreams are crazy weird. I recently dreamed I was teaching in college. I saw myself walking up this long hill, not by myself, but with lots of other people, and I was wearing a pencil skirt and leopard print heels (so definitely a dream). Then I found myself being a well dressed, highly educated, accomplice to murder. MURDER. What?

    Ya, I get totally weirded out by dreams.
    ~FringeGirl

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  5. Well that really made me laugh! (And now I actually do have to go to work, and I'm my own boss so I don't have any good excuses.)

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  6. What a funny dream! Of course you can't leave your day and night job to go work for money, though. That would be so silly, right?

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  7. Last night I dreamt I'd never married, and I was sad, because I wasn't sure if 39 was too old to start having babies. I've been married 13 years and have 3 kids. ??? I *am* 39 though, so...yeah. Makes perfect sense?!?!

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  8. Ah, anxiety dreams. So much fun to mine them for meaning, afterward.

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  9. My recurring dream is that I forgot to go to one class all semester and now I'm not going to graduate. Since I've already graduate from every school I plan on attending, that really doesn't make sense. And yet, the dream continues.

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  10. To me the most frustrating-sounding part of this is the NPR host who wouldn't take a message. And I endorse the idea of blaming menopause for just about everything.

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  11. I often have recurring anxiety dreams, but the other night I had two very weird dreams, one after the other - one involved some kind of outdoor shower enclosure I was trying to use - but the thread that held them both together was that in each dream, I was having frustrations with my I-phone. Either losing it, or not being able to work it, or having no signal. Bizarre.

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  12. I prefer to blame lying politicians.

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