Night Shifty

No wonder I’m so tired.

I’ve had vivid dreams for most of my life, but during the last week I experienced two back-to-back work-related nightmares that were so intense I should be getting a second paycheck.

These psychotic situations bore no resemblance to my current job, for which I am very grateful.

No, these delusions were a mental milkshake of past experiences, underlying emotional issues and heaping dose of WTF?

The first one found me working at a weekly newspaper in Brooklyn not unliked the one I worked for in the Eighties.

In this dream, I was heading off to cover some kind of occurrence at a local restaurant.

The only problem was I had no idea what kind of occurrence I was covering, although judging by the hostile looks I was getting from the employees, it wasn’t good and they clearly did not want me there.

I grew accustomed to this ill will whenever I showed up at crime scenes and accidents, where people were really just not that into you. It’s part of the job, but at least I knew what was going on.

This was different. I was trying to do my job, get the facts and get the hell out of there, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know what to ask.

And asking what was going on when I was clearly supposed to know would make me look like an idiot.

Somewhere in the midst of my panic attack I looked out the window and saw a sporting goods store that I remembered from my time in the Poconos.

It belonged on Main Street in Stroudsburg, not on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge, but then dreams have a way of twisting reality like a clown making a balloon animal.

And it was around this time that I launched into one of my world famous what-have-I-done-with-my-life laments, as in, why didn’t I move to California when I was younger, why did I become a reporter, etc. before—praise the Lord—I woke up.

The Following Evening...

I crawled out my bed somewhat shaken and started my day.

It’s intriguing that there wasn’t anything particularly terrifying about this dream, as I wasn’t being chased by monsters or attending a Manson family barbecue. This was a kind of low-grade fever dream that gnawed at the innards of my soul.

And it sucked.

Okay, fine, that was just a bad dream. They happen, no big deal, let’s move on.

And the very next night I hit the sack and once again I’m on the nether world time clock.

This time I’m working for Marvel Studios—yes, I finally achieved my dream of working for a major film company. Please, don’t wake me up before you go-go. I want to sleep through this one.

But it turned out that I had screw up something royally. I don’t what I did, but it was a whopper big enough to get me fired--and I knew it was all my fault.

And I wasn’t being sacked by some run-of-the-mill HR dick-bot, oh, no. The higher-ups had sent in the big guns in the form of Robert Downey Jr. (!?) to tell me to hit the bricks.

I remember sitting in my office—oh, man, I had my own office!--waiting and waiting, knowing the worst was going to happen but never certain when the Stark attack would begin.

I finally woke up, working at my current job and vowing to never watch another Robert Downey movie for as long as I lived.

Okay, so what happened here? Clearly my subconscious mind cried havoc and let slip the dogs of regret, fear and self-sabotage.

I let these mutts run around too much during waking hours, so it’s hardly surprising that they show up when the lights are low and make a meal out of my mind.

I’m not sure how Robert Downey got involved in all this. I’m not a fan of most superhero movies, but I did enjoy Iron Man very much. So why is this hump kicking me to the curb?

Clearly I have to do some house-cleaning in my head and maybe then my dreams won’t be so awful.

But I’m keeping a can opener handy just in case.