Seriously, NO MORE caffine before bedtime!

Ok, when I said no more caffine before bed, I meant it! The dreams I had last night! Whooooooa, mama! Crazy, let me tell you! In fact, I think I will:

It starts out with me at a strip mall that's under construction. I go into a high-end card and gift store (think Papryus) looking for toy for my ferret. (Why I think I'd find a toy for my ferret here, I don't know, but...) I find what I'm looking for, after help from the clerk: a catepillar/dragonfly-esque baby toy. I look the toy over and decide to go next door and get a cup of coffee. (Now, in my mind, I'm thinking, haven't I had enough caffine? Naaaah. I can always have more caffine. An icy frappachino-esque drink would be nice...) So, I go next door, and the coffee place looks pretty much like a coffee bar. Open, warm, earthy tones, jazz music playing, and tall, black chairs at the coffee bar. But a very limited menu. (You know how when you walk into a Starbucks you're bombarded by a list of the plethora of ways that you can have your coffee? Well, not here). Basically, I had a choice of..... coffee. Yup. Just plain, old coffee. Not even decaf. As I'm about to leave, the young man working behind the coffee bar (he even looks like a typical Starbucks employee: green apron, blonde-tipped hair, and horn-rimmed glasses) asks me put my buttons in their button jar. He points to a jar with buttons in it. Not like buttons on a shirt, but those buttons you buy with sayings on them. I look down at my sweater, and I tell him I can't give him my buttons. I'm wearing two: one is a Gryffindor button, which I clearly can't give up, and the other is an anti-Bush button, which, also, I clearly can't give up. He seems perplexed at the idea that I won't give up my buttons. I high-tail it out of there and go back into the high-end card shop to purchases the "ferret" toy. As I go to grab the toy, I remember that I have to buy a birthday card. However, I can't find any birthday cards (this is a card store!), so I grab the toy and head to the line. The toy is about a foot long with a bright orange body and purple wings that are folded behind it. It's made out of a squishy foam-like material, that I'm sure a ferret would just rip apart in minutes and probably end up clogging its intestines. Even as I'm standing in line, holding this, I can't help but wonder why I'm buying this for my ferret. The tag says for 5 months and up, so I figure it's ok. I ask the lady at the counter (a tall, slender, young woman with long, straight hair, wearing all white) about how good a toy this is for babies and what if, say, the family dog got ahold of the toy and chewed it to bits? (I, for some reason, did not want her to know that I was buying this for my pet). She said the toy was ok for children and not to worry if the family dog got ahold of it. She then took a jar of clear, blue goop and opened up the orange body of the toy, and slopped the goop inside the toy. She said that this would prevent my baby from teething on it and that I should really invest in a jar for all the baby's toys (all I could think was, whooooa! Stop there! I don't have a baby lady! This is for my pet!). I paid for the now gooped-up toy and headed to my car. I sat in the backseat with my mother. The car was a dark burgendy sedan. Very boxy, like a Lincoln from the '80's. The car took off and started driving itself. I was shocked, but my mother assured me that she had the car in self-pilot mode. I, never having been in a self-driving car before, became most skeptical. I climbed to the front seat (which was not easy, because like most big cars of the 80's, it had bench seats) and climbed into the drivers seat all-the-while the car was racing down an old tree-lined highway (remniscent of Telegraph). I reached the driver's seat just in time! The sky had started to darken, and we were driving into the sunset. Apparently, cars cannot drive themselves when it gets dark, because I had to slam on the brakes to stop the car from hitting the car in front of us. We swerved into oncoming traffic, made a sharp turn around the car stopped at the top of a hill on the highway, and continued on our way. Shortly, we passed McDonalds with a giant play area out front, and pulled in. Don't ask me why, I hate McDonalds (and being a vegetarian, this made no sense at all. But hey, since when do dreams make sense?) I went inside and it was like the place was possessed. The McDonald's characters (Ronald McDonald, the bird, the theif, the big purple thing) were at tables with customers, and the customers all had glazed-over looks in their eyes. All the customers were singing McDonald's jingles in slow, monotone voices, while the characters were smiling and waving their hands in the air like conductors. There was no staff to be seen behind the counter to take orders, or anywhere for that matter. I walked to the children's play area, and it was deserted. All the children were still at the tables with their parents and the characters, "singing" jingles. As I left the play area, one of the theif characters motioned me to sit down with him at his table. Reluctantly, I did. Then I started singing a McDonald's jingle, and I felt all warm and fuzzy and happy and the theif character just smiled and waved his hands about...

And then Rob's alarm went off, waking me and interrupting this horrible, insane dream. Lord only knows how it would have ended.

I've got to sign off now and head out the door to work. I had to write this dream down, though, before I forgot it! Crazy, huh? Seriously, what was in that slurpee?!? Oy Vey!

I'm off to do inventory! TTFN!