psocoptera

For the Wacky Dream file:

I was on some sort of secret agent mission in an airport with my dad, eating peanut butter out of one of those little tub things you usually get fast food sauce in, or maybe we were just talking about my wanting to go to an amusement park but there not being one close enough to Detroit, where we apparently were, although apparently if we had been in Boston there was one, like, right in the city, which for the record is not actually true.

Then somebody was spying on us from the clock, so I shot him with my nifty blue zappy laser pistol, only then when I tried to go home I found myself in an alternate universe, this totalitarian repressive society founded on the principle of Total Honesty, which seemed to involve banning most books, and thoughtcrime and stuff. Of course it's very dangerous to be a clueless stranger in a society like that, but fortunately the world sort of shrunk to this extended apartment complex at that point (my living unit, maybe?) and I was able to walk around not speaking until I found Carpenter and Kelilah and a friend from high school and a bunch of other people cooking dinner, which seemed to be a really inefficient process done in strict accordance with some mandated procedure. Of course, they didn't remember me, and I had no idea how loyal they might be so it was going to be risky to say anything, and at this point I had to start talking but was apparently doing a good job because somebody asked if I was, like, a strict Honesty devotee (I think I was sort of trying to give Spock-like answers), and then the Matron of the place came over to greet a new arrival and tell me that when I started work tomorrow I'd have to go through a brief program on Total Honesty, and I obviously looked uncomfortable because my friend from high school said it was just a few minutes, although if they caught anything I'd be watched by the Senate.

Around this point I managed to whisper in his ear that I was from an alternate universe, where I knew him, and needed to get back there (I think I had, like, some *thing*, that I really wasn't supposed to have in this world, but that could help me somehow) and his eyes sort of bugged out and he looked nervous. And outside the window we saw a police helicopter and the Matron was all "well, I'm glad to see they're doing their job promptly", not in a way that suggested she had any idea yet that the person they were coming for might be right there in her unit, but I was pretty scared, and at that point thought "well, if they're going to shoot me, I'll just have to wake up first" and then of course woke up.

Moral of the story: do *not*, through your actions, accidentally create an alternate universe with a repressive totalitarian government - you spend a lot of time feeling guilty, and the rest of the time being scared you're going to blow your cover and get informed on. Also, though, even in an alternate universe, your friends rock: when the Matron had her back turned Kelilah took a *gleeful* non-regulation stab at a potato.