(mis)adventures

I received a complaint yesterday. Apparently my most recent entry was more depressing than a bag of drowned kittens. I didn't think so, but my subconscious must have taken it personally. It rebounded today with an optimistic dream, knowing full well I'd tell it here. You get to hear it first, before it is shamelessly converted into word-mass for my novel.

I'm somewhere off in nondescript-setting land. The dream isn't really visual in any way. I'm listening to a Queen song I haven't heard before. It's important to note hrtr that I pretty much worship Queen. So I'm listening to the song for a while. It changes pace several times in that sexy Bohemian Rhapsody kind of way. Very enjoyable. And then, all of a sudden I'm hearing something very familiar. It takes me a moment, and then I realize I'm hearing one of my own songs, but sung by Freddie Mercury. And here I'm faced with a choice. I could get depressed, because there's nothing more depressing than taking a good song out of the bank. I definitely consider mourning the loss for a second, but then another idea occurs to me. "Hey!" I think. "This means my song kicks ass!" And on that happy note, the dream ended, at least I don't remember anything else. And no, I have no idea which one of my songs it was. It being kickass doesn't really narrow the search down.

Yesterday, Mario and I went to Starbucks. We looked up all the Starbucks in our area and found one that was open till eleven, because it was already ten when Mario got back from work. I even called a couple (so you can appreciate the effort). Having found it, we left the apartment in a hurry.

So we're in the car, we've driven out of the apartment complex, and we need to make our first decision - right or left. That's when we realize we forgot to do one insignficant little thing. We never wrote down the coordinates or phone number. In fact, neither of us remembers a single piece of information that would aid in the search.

Being optimists, we decide to drive around for a while. We roll down our windows. We think maybe we can pick up the scent of overpriced-ness. Our optimism lasts about ten minutes.

Then Mario has the brilliant idea of using On-Star. On-Star is a ghetto version of the GPS monitor+screen that's so generously contributing to the further mental retardation of America. You press a button, the car places a phone call, you tell the operator where you want to go, and they send directions to your car. Anyway, we use On-Star, and it takes us pretty much back to our apartment. Apparently there's a Starbucks in the next-door Kroger. Feeling most triumphant, we march into Kroger's only to find that we're about three hours too late. This wasn't the lucky Starbucks after all. After that we gave up and went home.

This reminded both of us of another of our many failures, one that took place sophomore year of college. We had decided to go to Costco. We were really excited about it for some reason. I think we were under the illusion, or rather delusion, that Costco is a magical place where pennies are still worth something - specifically vast amounts of food. We got ready, we took our biggest suitcases, and walked bravely out of Next House (our dormitory), dragging them behind us. We only went about thirty meters. We realized neither of us had a Costco card at twenty meters, the other ten were by inertia. Then we stopped and turned around without another word. We were each still willing to go, provided that the other would buy a card, and the resounding "No Way!" was palpable without us having to prompt each other.