Commercial Dream Seepage

Last night, after an especially grueling shift of work processing Christmas season parcels and working overtime, I fell asleep in front of my television. For some reason, it was on H2 (formerly History Channel International) when I dozed off. I can't remember: did they really have a show on about history, for a change? But anyway, it couldn't have been all that exciting: apparently, before I knew it, I had fallen sound asleep.

I found myself having one of those interesting geographical dreams. I approached a place that had some kind of roller coaster ride going on. In my dream, I thought that it was familiar, but later couldn't place it: it was most likely just a composite of other rides I had experienced over the years. Anyway, I went into the little building where the ride's entrance was. A friendly, elderly gentleman (who seemed to be the ride's operator) greeted me as did a younger man. The younger man then suddenly began to go on babbling incessantly about some great deal he was offering, selling those old U.S. quarters from the 50 states. I calculated within my dream that $.25 X 50 = $12.50 (I wonder how many people can do that while asleep), so the deal had better be comparable. I was surprised when he instead asked for 99 bucks! But the dude was making clear that, not only was he selling every single version of these quarters, but was also putting them in a album with the official "Smokey Bear" logo on it. This began to seep into my mind as a confirmation that I was having a wacky dream. Moreover, this son-of-a-gun was not only bothering me with his heavy-handed, aggressive speaking reminiscent of some of those obnoxious fire-and-brimstone preachers (like John Hagee, ugh), but he was also keeping me from my ride! So I managed to arise out of my slumber. Only to find myself facing a TV infomercial (on H2, of course) featuring a different son-of-a-gun spewing out the same sales pitch, with the same overbearing manner, about the same coin album offer. With Smokey Bear on the cover. Surreal.

Still wondering whether I was still dreaming, I managed to get up and flick off that TV. In the process, I flicked off that salesman as well...