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Zoidberg, Lindbergh, Mossberg

Date: 24-Feb-2015/17:54:26-5:00

Tags: , , ,

Characters: admirer, me, girl, friend, second girl, barber, black man, old man

I had been at some sort of convention that was winding down, and everyone was speaking about a friend of mine and how great his life must be. Another person commented that wasn't so.
admirer: "Oh, but to meet the man who wrote Super Dungeon Quest!!"
Note I'm making up the name here, but it was an expression of admiration for the friend's accomplishments.
me: (semi-annoyed) "Well there's a difference between writing something and being involved with it in various ways. Generally speaking, projects are done by teams of people. You should know exactly what part of it someone does before expressing too much admiration."
Note Truth spoken here, kids.
We walked out as a group into the street, outside of what appeared to be some kind of convention center. A large city seemed to spiral out in every direction.
girl: "So...is that it? Party over? Or are we going to do anything else?"
friend: "Let's get everybody back to their cars and regroup."
I realized I didn't know where my car was, and suddenly got a bit concerned about that.
me: "Gee, I came late...and I actually don't remember where I parked...I was in such a rush. Given that I come here so often, it all looks the same. I hope I didn't park it somewhere where it's going to get a ticket, I wasn't paying attention."
Note Given that I've never been to this place that I remember--in dreams or otherwise--this does sound like pretty typical mental preoccupation. I'll point out this happens when I'm awake too, though. I panic about it a lot, partially due to living in an LA neighborhood that had frequent street cleaning and complex rules varying day to day...it was very easy to get tickets and to forget.
We went to hunt for my car, walking around the stairways on the perimeter of this conference center. Some people went to their own cars leaving me with a diminishing group, and I kept looking.
Note The Gold/Beige 1997 Toyota Camry I was looking for has not been in my possession for several years now. I had seemingly forgotten I have a 2010 Honda Element now.
I walked by a place that was some sort of subway/bus stop, and accidentally ended up on a moving platform with rails separating me from the people I'd been walking with. Although it was moving like a subway it was above ground...traveling like a monorail around the perimiter of the buildings but with more the feel of a moving sidewalk.
Concerned about how easy it would be to turn around and get back to where I'd been, I began trying to make observations about the signs on the stores as we went by.
Once I got off, I went about trying to find the reverse transport to where I'd come from. A girl approached me.
girl: "Hey there, sexy!"
me: "Hi. Um, thanks...I'm actually looking to get back and find my car..."
girl: "That's too bad, you are exactly the type my friend likes, I was going to get you for her..."
A second girl came over, moderately attractive.
second girl: (excitedly) "Oh, yes!"
me: "Well, I'll have to give you my contact information. I've been known to accept the occasional proposition...but do you happen to know how to get back to..."
Note At the time I could remember one of the first store names I'd seen when I'd gotten on the wrong track, I no longer do.
Around this time, a black man came out of what looked like a barbershop, where several other black men were inside sitting. He looked at my hair, and had some scissors.
barber: "No! I can't let that stand!"
He took the scissors up and cut a little tuft of hair off of from above my ear. Then, he took them to the back and cut two more tufts off the sides.
barber: "Well, at least you can be out in public now."
When he took the tufts of hair he looked at them with scrutiny, there were little white spots in it.
me: "Yes, my scalp is kind of dry, I shave my hair myself and it typically has some dandruff in it."
The barber ran with alarm to a table with some kind of scientific-seeming equipment.
barber: "No, sir! You have visitors! Several kinds..."
He had a bag of models of some kind of lice-looking creatures.
barber: "You've got Zoidbergs... Lindbergs... Mossbergs..."
Note Those might not have been the precise names but they all ended in "berg" and I think Zoidberg was the first one.
He seemed to be sifting through the hair and trying to identify what he claimed were the categories of resident lice-beings I had living in it. He addressed the girl who had been talking to me before.
barber: "Now do you want to go home with a guy who has all those little grasshoppers on him?"
girl: (disgustedly) "Not any more..."
barber: "Well we'll fix this right now!"
The barber pulled me into the room and shut the door. It was small and crowded, and there were about six black men looking at me menacingly. One of them held up a sign that read something like:
Six black men just got out of prison.
And we're fighting a turf war. With one goal.
That involves you...
They continued to stare at me, and I back at them. Having become lucid, I realized I would be able to force myself awake to evade the situation. But I decided to stay and continue to see what I could see.
One broke the silence:
black man: (laughing) "...that involves you getting cleaned up from these damn bugs so you can go score with that hottie! All right, start the treatment!"
I just sort of sat there as they started spraying me with various things. It seemed like little bugs of some kind were raining off of my head, but hard to tell in all truth what was going on.
Note
My natural skepticism and "scam sense" generally would suggest such encounters are setups, with the girl likely a plant and whatever effect that feels like bugs coming off of you being an illusion.
While I struggle for interpretations, I document them for the...uh, transdimensional police. So look for a group of volunteer barbers set up by the people-mover and put them back in jail? <shrug>
Or maybe I have bugs in my head and need help. That's entirely plausible too.
After this, they seemed to lose interest in me and went out a back door from the "barbershop". When they did, it seemed they had changed from looking like black barbers to being a group of white doctors. The back door went into something that seemed like a medical area. They all seemed to go up to a kiosk that was selling prescriptions and began talking with the people inside.
I wandered around in a loop, not sure if I should be following them or doing something else. Another older man walked out of a doctor's office with a large tablet-shaped thing that could have been a book or a computer. He stopped and turned to me.
old man: "There was a question I was asked, when I was applying for the CIA, and I got it wrong. Pretty sure I didn't get the job because of it. Perhaps you'd know what the answer would be."
me: "Um. I...don't know. I guess I could try."
I do not remember the wording of the problem he told me. But it was mathematical and sounded the bit like a half-life calculation of the rate of decay of some resource. But it was about people--like if there are a certain number fewer people in a baseball league each year, how many years until they get to just 50 people left.
old man: "So, I asked them what year it was. Why was that a wrong thing to say?"
me: "I'm sorry, I can't really concentrate in this state. But from what I could see there, the year in which it happens doesn't matter. It's a question solely about duration; relative and not absolute. Don't take my word though."
old man: "What reminded me of it is that I'm going through books that belonged to Miley Cyrus, and found that same question here again..."
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The accounts written here are as true as I can manage. While the words are my own, they are not independent creative works of fiction —in any intentional way. Thus I do not consider the material to be protected by anything, other than that you'd have to be crazy to want to try and use it for genuine purposes (much less disingenuous ones!) But who's to say?