Crazy Dreams - Aliens, Otters and My Relatives

Dreams are rarely run-of-the-mill and last night was no exception, but since I remembered so much detail this time I thought I'd write it down and share the zaniness. For those who were "victims" of my earlier dream about Vox folks, don't worry, you're only spectators this time. :)

It begins as I'm driving home in Amanda's Subaru Forester and the usually-paved road becomes increasingly rugged until it's all rutted dirt overgrown with weeds, yet there's still steady traffic. At the top of a hill I try to turn left but it seems as if the car got tangled in the weeds! I shift to neutral, drift backward, and then engage 1st gear hoping to muscle through. No luck - the wheels have traction but the engine doesn't have enough power; I'm dumbfounded that weeds could hold back a car like that.

By now I'm holding up traffic so I exit the car to investigate, only to discover that an electric cable is caught on the undercarriage! No wonder I couldn't break free. I walk up to the car behind me and ask the guy if he has any wire cutters. He opens the center storage console of his car and offers me a selection of a half-dozen styles of snipping tools! I pick one out, put on my winter gloves to avoid electrocution, and cut the cable hoping that I can drive away before the nearby apartment complex figures out what (or who) caused them to lose power.

The scene cuts to Thanksgiving dinner at my paternal grandparents' house - although everyone is from "present day" my grandpa (who died in 1998 in real life) is there, too. All of my family - brothers, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles - are there and we're just hanging out when the doorbell rings. I answer the front door and find a mother and her 10-year-old son, who say that they're here for dinner. I explain that they can come in but that they have to walk around to the back of the house and enter through the garage.

Grandpa then asks who they are. "I don't know, but they said they're here for dinner" was my reply. I knew that he and grandma had invited local boy scouts and girl scouts to join us for dinner, but grandpa explains to me that only certain scouts were allowed and I was supposed to ask their qualifications. I reasoned to grandpa that they wouldn't be here if they weren't qualified because otherwise they wouldn't have received an invite, but it's a moot point as it turns out the boy is one of the ones who were invited.

The boy, not knowing anyone, just stands around until my brother Eric asks him if he likes video games. Of course he does, so Eric shows him how to play Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo and soon all of us cousins are taking turns playing competitively. Finally we all quit and move on to board games when cousin Gabe starts to dominate the high score list.

[Real life note: Our first video game growing up was Super Mario Bros and Eric was the first one to win the whole thing; in fact he outplayed Ryan and I at every video game. Gabe, as the legend goes, had the highest Tetris score among his entire dorm and is probably the only person to get a higher score in Tetris than Eric.]

Another boy, 8 years old, arrives with his parents. Someone asks what he enjoys and he mumbles "stuffed animals..." My brother Ryan jumps up and says "Come on, let me show you all about them" and they run upstairs where all of the plush toys are kept.

[Real life note: As kids, Ryan was the sucker for cute plush animals. Eric and I had a dozen or so each but Ryan must've had 50, most of them smaller than a softball. Whenever he saw a small, cute stuffed animal in a store he'd say "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww" and start counting his allowance money.]

The last of the scouts arrives, a 12-year-old girl, right before dinner starts. After eating we go back to playing various video games, board games; or for Ryan and the little boy, playing with stuff animals. I tried to play Nintendo with Gabe but after waiting 15 minutes he's still on his first life (trying to set a record by collecting every single coin in the game, no less) so I decide to walk around. As I leave I hear the girl asking Gabe if he's seen the Aliens or Predator movies, but he's too busy concentrating to answer.

I watch the girl as she walks over to Ryan and the boy and she asks them about Aliens and Predator, but the boy looks scared and Ryan says that she shouldn't talk about such scary movies in the presence of a young kid. She walks away as Ryan continues to explain to the little boy how the stuffed animals could gang up and defeat any aliens or predators.

I mosey over to the board game where all of my cousins plus Eric are playing a raucous game of Money! Money! Money!, yet also somehow involving a deck of playing cards. Eric and Kevin seem to be exclaiming "Dang!" after every hand and have almost no money. Eventually I realize that the gals - Betsy, Kerry, Ana, Adrienne - are ganging up on the guys - Pat, Kevin, Eric - except for being nice to Eric's new 10-year-old pal who doesn't really know how to play anyway. As I walk around behind everyone to see the cards in their hand, I realize that Pat has the gals fooled. They *think* he's losing as badly as Eric and Kevin are, but he's bluffing and building up a "shoot the moon" type of hand.

[Real life note: We played Money! Money! Money! a lot when we were younger, and as teens we played the physical card game Spoons were Eric and Kerry infamously battled over the last spoon as if it were an NFL fumble. Nowadays we still play Euchre, Crazy Cards, and other games but we might be a bit old for Spoons!]

Later on everyone gathers in the family room (somehow we all fit comfortably) to watch the Detroit Lions. I'm lying on the floor next to the 12-year-old girl so I say to her "Why do you ask about Aliens and Predator?" to which she exclaims "That's my favorite movie!" Since there have been a few of them, I ask her which one. "You actually know that there are more than one?" Come to find out that none of this girl's friends know anything about those movies (probably because they're 12-year-old girls!) and I'm finding it rather odd that this girl scout is such a huge fan.

Then in a weird, poltergeist kind of way, she explains to me that I should understand her. She begins drawing with her finger on the carpet and when she does, red lines appear on the TV similar to John Madden's telestrator! She draws a smiley face on the TV and scrawls "Aliens rock!" but nobody else appears to notice. The girl explains that I'm the only one who can see it - "It's just like The Shining" she says. Stunned, I trace an drawing on the carpet of a dog piloting a flying saucer and sure enough, it appears on the TV screen but nobody sees it except for the girl.

Eventually the Lions lose the game and it's time for everyone to go for a tractor ride. Grandpa drives his green John Deere loader towing a wagon with all of the "adults" (i.e. parents) who want a shorter, slower ride. Kevin drives his dad's red International Farmall pulling a wagon full of us "kids" for a longer, wilder ride. My dad joins us to ensure we stay safe while Uncle Denny (Kevin's dad) joins us to ensure Kevin doesn't damage the tractor.

Along the way we plan to drop off the scouts but soon we encounter Amy Poehler in the middle of a dirt road intersection! She asks for a ride to her house, pointing along one of the roads. We tell her that we're headed in the opposite direction and she begs "but it's not that far!" We laugh and explain that we're not giving her a tractor ride all the way to New York. Finally she relents, but then hops in the wagon and says that she'll just go where we're going.

We were supposed to drop off the three scouts to their homes, but first Kevin takes us to a huge hill of dirt next to a gravel pit. Kerry explains that it's the highest point in the county and somehow we decide to all race each other to the top.

[Real life note: This reminds me of when Ana, Adrienne and I climbed the bluff at Sleeping Bear Dunes.]

I'm the first one to reach the summit and there I spot a Giant River Otter! It's not full grown but still about 50 pounds, and it seems a bit sick and deranged. I try to shoo it down the hill before the others get up there, afraid that it might bite one of the kids. However, it's a persistent little bugger - every time I push it with my foot it tries to grab my leg with its hands. Eventually the kids reach the top and when the otter moves towards them, I finally get a hold of it by the scruff but it somehow grabs my arm as well and I can't shake it off!

Now I'm walking around with an otter hanging off my arm trying to keep my distance from the curious kids while also trying to get someone to help me get the otter off. Eric won't come near - he doesn't want to end up smelling like an otter. Ryan refuses because of the claws. My dad is afraid of getting rabies.

Finally Kevin says "Look, it's just an otter" and he grabs one of the otter's arms. The otter looks confused and I'm able to pull my arm away, and Kevin quickly flings the otter over the edge down the side of the hill. It lands with a thud partway down and doesn't move, and I'm concerned that Kevin may have killed it, but then I wonder if it's laughing at us when I see milk coming out its nose!

I resolve to go check on the otter once we all go back to the wagon - when everyone starts hiking back down the hill I hang behind, and when they're out of sight I quickly run down to the otter... it's gone! Thankful that it appears to have survived, I dash around the side of the hill to catch up with the group.

The End