Super Gas

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 27, 2008

In real life, since hurricane Ike hit a few weeks ago, there has been a gas shortage where I live. It's very difficult to find a station with gas, and when you find one you often have to wait in line. That leads to a lot of frustration...so you'll see how this reality plays into parts of the dream, especially the middle part.

It was late at night. Eric and I were in my car and I needed gas. We found a station that was selling it, but you had to pay inside. We were both walking inside, and I noticed through the window that a couple of crooks were currently robbing the place at gunpoint. Eric didn't notice this, and before I could tell him, he started to open the door and enter. I stopped him before the crooks noticed us.

We rushed back to the car, but instead of calling the cops and getting out of there, we just waited until we saw the crooks flee the store, then we went inside to pay for our gas. And everything was just fine inside the store...there were even lots of customers.

There was a very young girl there with her dad, and when he wasn't looking, she grabbed a whole stack of these promotional coupons off the counter. She tried to hand them to the clerk, demanding he redeem all the coupons, and when he explained to her, "one per customer", she pitched a colossal fit.

Finally it was my turn to pay for gas, and the clerk explained to me that he didn't have any more regular gas, but he was expecting a shipment of "Super Gas" if I was willing to wait just a few minutes for it to arrive, and willing, of course, to pay a premium for it. I was almost on empty, and everywhere else was out, so I waited on the Super Gas.

Soon an 18 wheeler arrived and four men began unloading barrels of "Super Gas" from the back. They made me help them unload! As we unloaded they were telling me how Super Gas was somehow akin to jet fuel. I thought it was rubbish that I had to help them unload the stuff, so I pretended to have to go to the bathroom and went in there and waited until enough time had passed for them to be finished.

When I came back out, all the men were having a picnic around a picnic table outside the station (it was still the middle of the night). I joined them, and among the dinner conversation I discovered that the four of them were actually a Southern Gospel quartet and only delivered Super Gas part time. They were sharing their stories of traveling the road doing shows, and I soon lost the ability to even feign interest. As soon as I finished my food, I left.

I don't remember the series of events next, but I somehow ended up driving with my mom into some neighborhood that was partially destroyed. She said hurricane Ike had done it. Then we went into a place with a lot of other people, and while I can't be certain, I think it was a church.

Seated next to my mom and I was the waitress I actually had at Olive Garden in real life earlier this night. I wanted to talk to her, but then, naturally, her boyfriend came in and the two of them were talking loudly. Then the church service, or whatever it was, began and the two of them just kept on loudly talking. My mom got really annoyed.

There was some other little tidbit of dream where I was watching the news on TV, and they showed these giant monster-men fighting downtown, and they crushed a KFC restaurant. The news said this had upset a lot of people, but that it was revealed to have been an elaborate hoax. They were normal-sized men in costumes and the KFC was made out of cardboard...and yet somehow it had fooled even people who had seen it in person.