breaking and entering

Speaking of dreams in which people are out of character, I had one last night in which my parents were completely out of character (they're normally extremely law-abiding and very concerned with propriety).

We (parents, me, sister, and possibly grandmother; I don't remember either of the sons-in-law being there) were on a road trip somewhere in rural southern or central Arkansas. Apparently no one had planned for lodging, and it was getting late. Since it was so rural, there were no hotels around, so my parents stopped at a little cluster of houses in the middle of the woods. Somehow it was decided that one of the houses was where we would spend the night. I'm not sure how this was decided, but I was so taken aback that I didn't even question the decision at first, thinking surely they would come to their senses.

They started unloading the car and carrying things into the house, which was fully furnished and clearly lived in. They were commenting on the furnishings and dishes in a matter-of-fact way, and my mother started puttering in the kitchen, although she seemed a little disapproving of the cookware. My dad removed a screen from one of the windows, saying that it was double-screened for winter, and since it was no longer winter the screen should be removed. I thought at first that he was getting ready to do some repair work, which I had mixed feelings about. On one hand, this wasn't his house; on the other hand, maybe he was looking at it as payment for staying there.

When I realized that they were serious about staying there, I started freaking out and saying that we had to leave right now because someone lived in the house and we could be charged with breaking and entering. When they weren't fazed by that, I brought up the possibility of the owner coming home late, finding his house full of strangers, and opening fire with his shotgun and killing us in our sleep. That didn't make much of an impression either, and I was more and more stressed about how to extricate myself from the situation. I was also disturbed at not getting any backup from my sister, who in real life is sensible and very cautious about anything that could provoke a violent reaction from a random stranger. She had shut down and wasn't saying anything, just wandering around almost invisibly in the sidelines (maybe looking to make her exit unnoticed?).

After we had been there for a while, with all the lights blazing and the windows opened, a police car drove by. It circled around, left, drove by again, and parked facing the house. The policeman just sat there staring at the house, with a civilian woman in the passenger's seat who looked like Grace Jones. I thought that surely that would move my parents to change their plans, but they remained calm in their bedtime preparations.

I don't remember how all that ended. I think it just phased into another story line. I was at work, looking at pictures (or footage?) with my boss. The pictures showed the bend in a creek that was supposedly part of a cave/creek system here in town. The bed was eroded stone with very steep edges, like a very miniature western river canyon, and the water was gushing through. He wanted me to go out and explore the creek system and take more pictures, but I was a little worried about the safety of getting into such rushing water. He said it was only about waist deep, but I thought he was being a little cavalier because he's a very tall and large person and would be a lot more stable in such a rapid current than a medium-sized person. I also wasn't excited about spending my free time on a work-related project, even one involving such beautiful scenery, and hoped he would forget about asking me.

In the other snippet, I was shopping with my mother, and it's only significant in a dream-analysis sense. She was rushing me along and didn't want me to look at some things I wanted to look at, which is one reason I don't shop with my significant other (the other reason being that I don't generally like shopping with anyone but myself). It's one of a few examples of dreams in which I transfer annoying husbandly traits to my mother, which I find odd.