Nightmares

I'm playing a fun little game called "reload your online bank account every ten seconds" right now. Yes, a nightmare-themed blog. And we're having a bit of a money-related nightmare right now. You see, one problem I have to face with my self-employment is that there's no regular paycheck and I depend on my employers to pay up on time. Which they usually do, but right now I'm waiting for three transactions, which have been delayed a bit. The first one got buried under a ton of mail in a very busy office and they didn't notice my invoice to them until I reminded them. Honest mistake, shit happens. As for the second one, well... "Yeah, should have gone out as far as I know." Well, so far it hasn't. And the third one got delayed because of vacation and sick leave.

These things happen. If you can't deal with this kind of stuff, then self-employment isn't for you. However, it gets a bit problematic when things get delayed by a week or two and you can't pay your bills (I should have paid the rent on last month's 25th but couldn't) and you can't go out, buy stuff, have fun, that kind of thing. You see, it was the Bear's birthday this week, we wanted to go out today, have dinner in town, maybe do a little shopping, we wanted to order 2 copies of the upcoming CoD Ghosts and just enjoy a kickass weekend. Problem is, the money ain't there yet. Might arrive any minute, might arrive in an hour or two. Might not arrive until Monday. Sigh.

It's ironic. I'm waiting for the biggest amount of money I have ever made in this job within a single month. I've never had so much work before, but in the end I've met all my deadlines, finished all my stuff and I'm looking forward to receiving a pile of money, which will financially secure us for the rest of the year - unless we spend it all on pizza. Yet I'm unable to pay the rent or celebrate Claire's birthday right now, because the money isn't there yet. Right now I don't know when we can finally go out and celebrate - or if we can go out at all. What's worse is the paranoia that goes along with this. What if the money won't be there all day? What if there's not gonna be any money on Monday? Yesterday was a public holiday in Germany, which may have delayed all payments and transactions a little further. I miss having a predictable, monthly paycheck.

But let's move from RL nightmares to traditional, dreamy ones. I think I've just dreamed up an entire episode of Outer Limits or Twilight Zone or something. The whole thing was in the near future, Claire and I were finally married, we even had a baby (WTF?! We HATE babies!) and for some stupid reason we decided to buy a car. One of those really massive ones. A Range Rover or a Hummer or some shit. So we bought one of those monstrosities, went back home and it didn't take long for Claire to show some really erratic behaviour. You see, since it was the future, it was possible (and perfectly normal) for certain companies to put commercials and advertisements right into people's minds and dreams. And apparently, Claire got stuck in a Range Rover commercial. She was logged on to an online game and I noticed how her avatar was getting torn to shreds by monsters, but she didn't even care, because she was busy looking at maps and routes and stuff on the internet. This isn't like her at all. You see, she takes her gaming very seriously and the life of her avatars is top priority. I told her that she was getting her ass kicked on her game. "That's not important right now. I'm planning a trip with our brand new Range Rover!" I shook her, shouted at her, asked what the heck was going on with her and for a moment, she went back to normal. She seemed tired and confused and we decided she should get some rest.

Something wasn't right. I picked up the phone to call a doctor or 999 or something. I'm not entirely sure, it was a dream and they never make perfect sense. But the guy on the phone just tried to sell me cheap insurance. I tried asking family and neighbours for help, but they were all just advertising stupid products. I was trapped in my own, personal Truman Show and everyone around me had turned into some kind of commerical zombie. I figured I was the only one still sane because of my willpower and intelligence (ahem!) and the fact I'm just not into having a lot of expensive stuff. I went to the bedroom to check on Claire, but she wouldn't even wake up. I squeezed her, kissed her as though to wake her up from some grotesque fairytale sleep, showed her our baby, wanted her to come back to me. It looks a bit stupid when I'm writing it down like this, but imagine you dream up some weird shit like that and you're convinced that the one person you love the most will never come back to you. Not fun.
That's when she opened her eyes. She smiled at me. Had no idea why I was so desperate and freaked out. "Everything is fine, love. Don't worry", she said. Words couldn't describe the relief I felt when I finally had her back. "Why don't we go on that trip in our new Range Rover?"

You know, that's a pretty good ending right there. A real kick in the teeth. But it didn't end there. I got out of the bedroom. And our house was empty. Abandoned. And I was a lonely old man. Claire had left me and moved on a long time ago. Because it wasn't her and everyone else around me who turned into some kind of dream-advertisement zombies with zero sense of reality. It was me. I had slept my entire life away, living some bizzare tv ad fantasy as though it was real. When I finally woke up, my whole life was over.

Now that's some weird shit to wake up to. And my subconscious has ripped off quite the nice amount of sci-fi and mindfuck shows and novels to entertain me over night.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not freaked out or shaken or anything and this isn't gonna haunt me. I didn't write about it in this blog because I have to unload or "talk about it". I wanted to write it down before I forget all about it. Because I'm fascinated with how complex and surprising the whole thing was. Most of my dreams tend to be random garbage, which rarely makes any sense, but this one told a whole story. Not a brand new or original one, but it was still very interesting, as far as dreams go.

Oh well. Back to the real nightmare: Reloading the banking website and not finding a single penny in my account. Reload, reload, reload....


-Cat