Turns Out I Also Have a Dream

But it's much more selfish and probably not quite as personal or universally acceptable as Martin Luther King Jr's.  I'll venture that in 50 years, nobody will be all dramatically recounting the major talking points of my dream.

So I'll just go ahead and reveal my dream here.

At 3:25 A.M., I was startled awake out of a dream state.  It involved various people and jobs in my life for the last 15 years or so.  I sat up and thought about the dream because whenever I have a dream like this that is completely realistic, I want to remember every detail and see if there is anything impossible or even slightly implausible that happened in the dream.

If not, I consider it a successful dream.  People always come up and say, "I had the weirdest dream, do you want to hear about it?"

And I always say, "Actually, no I don't want to hear about it.  Although it may seem wildly entertaining to you that you subconsciously created a little story or something, It's really fantastically boring to everyone else.  I'll tell you what I'll do for you.  I will patiently listen while you struggle to remember exactly how it went if after you are done, I

1) Don't have to help you understand the meaning or the symbolism involved.

and

2) Get to tell you all about my dream.

"No?  Hey where you going?  I thought you wanted to ..."

Sorry about that, I had to get rid of that guy.  So yeah, weird dreams are the norm.  It's the ones that make complete sense that I find spooky.

So last night, while I was sitting on the edge of the bed, running my fingers through my hair recalling in reverse order the details of the dream, I decided it was one of these rare ones that actually could happen.  These are the ones that I personally believe aren't dreams, but prophesies!!!

Ok, so at the end of the dream, I was sitting at the helm of a Union Pacific locomotive.  I was the driver.  I was parked in the DTN parking lot on the east side, facing north.  I was picking up Union Pacific CEO Jim Young.  The weird thing here is that when I woke up and thought about this, I thought I remembered that he was no longer CEO.  So since this dream is obviously a prophecy, it means Jim Young will be CEO again or he still is, I don't know or care.

Now I never really disliked or for that matter 'knew' Jim Young.  There was only one time when I was slightly jealous of him.  Back when I was at "The U.P." I was walking my bike from where I parked my car (about 6 blocks away - it was only $45 a month to park 6 blocks from the building) to where I locked it (my bike) up outside the building.  I was walking along the west side of the building and there was like this big automated garage door on the side of the building that started to open.  I figured it was for a food delivery truck or something because they had this pretty elaborate cafeteria at U.P. HQ.  But no.  It was not for delivery.  It was Jim Young's garage.  After the side of the building opened, he zipped by in front of me in some little silver sporty car and deftly disappeared somewhere deep within the bowels of the U.P. HQ building.  I glanced down at ol' Maroon V (my bike) and told it, "That was pretty effin' cool, was it not!"  Maroon V confirmed my suspicion by mutely rolling along beside me.  Then I suddenly became aware of a need to read my emails more carefully.  I surely missed the one where the employees could sign up for those underground lair spots.  Oh well, I shrugged and walked on, verbally battered by the comments from co-workers about how I, by pushing my bike along, was using it incorrectly.  By the way, all of these jokers were big huge pleasantly plump¹ fat fucks.

Ok - so back to the completely plausible dream:

Remember.  I was sitting outside of DTN in a U.P locomotive.

Then just as Jim Young was walking across the DTN Parking lot to get into the passenger side of the U.P. locomotive, I looked down to see that the passenger seat was all covered with a bunch of Real estate junk and also some empty mocha cups.  I telepathically said, "Ji-iiill"  with a stern warning undertone.  When she started picking up her things from the passenger side, I said to her (again telepathically) "I don't even care.  It's your fault, anyway."

Then I woke up.

Before that (in the dream), I had been riding my bike home from work.  As I went through downtown, Brady flagged me down.  He was hopping about from one foot to the other like he had to pee or like the sidewalk was really hot or something.

"What is it?"  I mentally sent this query to Brady.

"Don't worry, I don't think Shim will let you do it anyway." Brady willed his thoughts to my head.
"What - do you mean drive a locomotive from the Council Bluffs yard out to DTN on 90th and Dodge and pick up Jim Young because you have to go to the pawn shop to recover your stolen bike?" I asked silently as I boarded Ol' 4156  that was all gassed up and ready for me to drive it down Dodge street.

I let Brady know it was ok by thinking the words, "It'll be fine.  Shim won't have any objections as long as I let him shovel the coal on the way out.  Now go get that bike of yours, tiger!"

"Thanks Cube!"  Brady nodded, "Otherwise I'd never get all these newspapers delivered before Evel Knievel does his nationwide televised jump tonight,"  he explained without opening his mouth.

That was when I noticed Brady had a huge bag over his shoulder.  At first I had thought it was to carry tacos, but upon closer inspection, it was just a World Herald Issued Newspaper carrying bag.  So Brady is a paperboy?  I wondered briefly if he had one of those sweet Gary Fisher bikes.

Shaking my head as I punched the cigarette lighter on the interior of the Train engine, I drove off towards the west (and um, my destiny).  The feeling I had driving that huge vehicle down Dodge street was directly related to the experience of the 2013 Corporate Cycling Challenge.  At the end of it, police motorcycle escorts cleared our path of all bike and other traffic for the lead group of riders.  We were able to fly through the streets with hundreds of people cheering as we passed.

In case you're wondering what that feels like, it feels like driving a train right down the middle of Dodge street.  No exceptions.

But before I was downtown assuring Brady it was no problem for me to pick Jim Young up from DTN, I was sitting in the reception area of where I work.  It was time for me to leave, but the guys from Olympia were out at the bike rack making sure everything was kosher with my new bike.

They came in to the reception area a few minutes later and I said, "I'm all ready to go.  Everything looks great," confirming their thoughts.  Andrew and Andrew (The Olympia guys) fed my brain with the information that not only was this service call not to be charged, but also that they installed a power meter for me and if I like it I can just keep it.  Man, those guys are great.

Once I started riding my new bike toward downtown, I found out it was the most comfortable bike I've ever owned.  In fact, it was as comfortable as lying in bed.

Ok, just for the sake of research, I went and read the text of MLK jr's speech.  Yeah, his dream is better than mine.  Dammit.

¹Brady Murphy, "Super Secret Training Stuffs" IM Messages with Shim, August 2013.