Around Town

Once again I was hanging out with my parents, and this time with my boyfriend. We were going to some sort of college sporting event--maybe football. It was fairly raucous and involved a lot of undergraduates. There were a few sort of closet-structures around, and I took a chair from one labeled "Communications."

As we were leaving the event (about which I don't remember anything), I realized that I hadn't returned the Communications chair, and I felt terrible. I had the impression that different departments sponsored these chairs as a fundraising opportunity at the games.

We strolled happily through a very nice downtown-type area, which I realized, upon later analysis, was an amalgamation of all my generic dream cities. I think it was mostly supposed to be Minneapolis, though, and I was pointing out various areas of town and businesses.

And then we stopped at a laundromat near a thrift store. For some reason, my parents (or were they my grandparents by then?) needed to use a laundromat. I started poking around the thrift store, having been enticed by shirts in the window that were on sale for $0.50. I picked up a lime green polo, and was going to get it for fifty cents, when I looked at it more closely, realized it was pilled, and decided I didn't want it even for that price.

At some point, I realized the store was actually closed and that I couldn't buy anything. The two women who ran it were rearranging and pricing things, but weren't willing to ring up any purchases. They had apparently just opened the store, and I thought it was pretty cool that they were privately running a thrift store to help the community, and not to have some chichi boutique.

Disturbingly, however, now it was my ex-boyfriend who was hanging around in the store. We seemed to be attempting to mutually avoid each other, but then he was lingering closer and started to talk to me. I turned and walked away. I woke up with one of those lingering gross feelings.