Anxiety Reality

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're late to work but you have no way to get there? Or mid-way through a dream, you realize that you're supposed to be in class, but you're nowhere near your school? I will admit to having more of these anxiety dreams than I should. I always seem to feel behind the game somewhere deep in my subconscious. But this morning, I had what can only be called an Anxiety Reality.

The alarm went off as it normally does around 6:30AM at which point, I turned it off and rolled over. At 8:10Am I re-awoke. That gave me about half hour to get ready and get out the door which, considering my low-maintenance style, isn't a problem. However, as I rounded the corner to the bathroom, my roommate opened her bedroom in wild-eyed confusion. Her alarm clock did not go off at all. Considering I live ten minutes from work and she lives twenty minutes from work (on good traffic days), I let her take the bathroom first. About midway through her shower, our doorbell rang. It was our downstairs neighbor. It seems our bathtub was draining into her bathtub and she was bailing out our used water, shampoo bubbles and all. She had a call into the landlord, but in the meantime, could we keep our showers short? Iew. OK. At this point it was 8:25 and I decided to be kind and instead of showering at home, I would go and shower at my gym, but that would mean being late to work. I called my boss on his cell to let him know the issue and that I was going to be about thirty minutes late. He said, "fine;" I packed a bag and was out the door within ten minutes.

I get to the gym and...there's no where to park. What the hell? By now it's 8:40 and why aren't these people at work?! Literally, there was a line of three cars trying to get IN to the parking lot. Stupid out-of-work actors. I drove around the block a couple of times and finally found a parallel spot to squeeze into. I dash into the gym and into the locker room. The first stall is swampy. Iew. The second stall is out of order. Humph. The third stall is taken, and the last stall is the handicap stall, and -- screw it! It's clean -- I took it regardless that I always leave the handicap stall open out of moral imperative and lawful obedience. Ahh, but God would punish me for such an infraction because there's no soap in the dispenser! Bloody 'ell. So, I use my $15 pore and facial cleanser as bath soap. Whatever. During the course of the shower the water pressure keeps changing so that half the shower is a hot, harsh spray and other half is a cold trickle. Grumble, grumble. I get out of the shower, powder, spray, and slather, then bustle out to the sink area to do my hair. But, AGH, they've taken out the blow dryers! This will teach me not to get my expanding jell-o bottom to the gym more often. So, for the first time since I've moved out of the state of Connecticut more than eight years ago now, back in my low, low maintenance days, I went to work with wet hair. Thankfully, I had an elastic to at least wrangle the wet mess into a ponytail.

I got to work at 9:25Am. Not too bad. But seriously, it was surreal. I couldn't have dreamed a more weird sequence of events. Oh, wait. No. No, that's not true. There was that one dream when I realized that it was my wedding day, but my mother wouldn't help me get dressed, and my sister refused to lend me her curling iron. I have a feeling, however, plumbing will start to feature heavily in to future anxiety dreams.