Where's My Phone?

Another excellent source of free-write fodder are dreams. I didn't sleep well last night and, as such, haven't had a lot of energy today. In between loads of laundry, I decided to take a quick cat nap. My sleep was once again fitful, resulting in this extremely creepy dream.

Mrs. B

I am by myself in what seems to be my mom and dad’s prior house in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. It’s that large in any case, with a similar layout, even if it is not the exact same house.

I wander downstairs to the basement area because I hear water dripping. Is it ever; it turns out that it is pouring out of the top of the bathroom door jamb! I cannot go into the bathroom that way, obviously, so I run around to another bathroom, getting totally drenched along the way. I stand there in abject frustration because I don’t know what to do about the water that is now all over the place. I run outside a sliding glass door and roam around the outside of the house muttering to myself, “What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to DO?” I’m irritated more than anything; where did my mother and sister go? Why did they leave me with this mess? As I go around the house, I notice that there is a small crowd of brightly dressed people mingling around what appears to be a Merry Go Round. They are, I see, decked out in costumes of a Renaissance-era sort. Some wear masks, some are small children.

I make my way back to the sliding glass door and step inside. All of a sudden, there is a man standing behind me, not quite through the sliding glass door. He is not the type of man you’d think to be frightened of, in fact, he looks quite silly. He is a bit rotund and he is dressed all in white; a basic men’s undershirt, BVDs and tube socks. He also has a white half mask a la the Phantom strapped on to his face. His hair is an unruly mop of sweaty blond curls. He has the overall demeanor of an overweight yet threatening ill-dressed cherub.

He says to me, genially enough, “Well, well, what is this all about?” but his actions are menacing as he pushes me away from the door and gains entry to the house. I see him looking about the basement area, glancing here and there as he draws the correct conclusion that I am alone in the house. I move away from him, intent on reaching the staircase before he realizes what I am up to. He notices a bed peeking out of the open door to one of the rooms and tries to steer me towards it. Knowing full well his intent, I start to call and whistle for my dog Lucy, who is slumbering somewhere upstairs.

“Lucy! Lucy!” I shout, then, give a weak whistle. “C’mon Lucy, come here!” He pauses, cocking his head, wondering, I am sure, whether there really IS a Lucy in the house. Apparently, he decides this is a ruse on my part as he begins in earnest to get me to the bedroom. I am wondering myself if Lucy is going to come save me when I finally hear the faint jingle of her tags. I keep calling as he keeps dragging. Finally, he hears her, too. He pauses again, pondering. This time, however, as Lucy comes clambering down the stairs, there is no question of her existence, and, with him not knowing what type of dog Lucy is, he thankfully, thankfully, decides to exit the house before making her acquaintance.

I meet Lucy half-way up the staircase. She continues on down into the room, her hackles obviously raised. I go on up up the stairs, calling her to me as I go, in a rush to get the door shut and locked.

After we are both in the hallway, I slam the door closed and fumble for the lock. To my dismay, the regular lock had vanished, replaced by one of those rattle trap and ineffective slide locks you sometimes encounter in the bathroom of a dive bar. Not only is the lock extremely shim-sham, I can’t figure out where the latch slides into the hole because there IS no matching hole in the adjoining wall. I try for a few moments to wedge it into the cement, but this was obviously a futile task.

Abandoning the lock and now even more frantic, I began searching for my cell phone so that I can call 911. I run from room to room, finding every other electrical device in the house but not my cell phone. I am thinking that I should have left Lucy down in the basement to deal with the caped cherub should he return when I stumble and fall, breaking off the right lens of my already fairly worthless glasses. For a moment, I stand in total despair, holding the broken lens in my hand. Shaking off the paralysis that threatens to keep me rooted to the spot, I take off once again in search of my elusive cell phone, calling “Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone?” over and over as I go.