Crazy Dream #14.........

First some background for this particular crazy dream:

Our phone rang at 3:05 this morning. That's 3:05 AM. Middle of the night. It was my mother-in-law, as I knew it would be.

MIL: Bragger, what time is it?

(I thought to myself, if she has called me just to ask what time it is, we're going to have a serious come-to-Jesus meeting.)

Me: It's 3:05. (Heart pounding)

MIL: I hate to ask you to do this, but I've really got to pee.

Me: I'll be right there.

I wonder if our neighbors have wondered why we are walking up and down the road at all hours of the day and night, accompanied by Gus.

I was only gone about 15 minutes. I've gotten to be quite a pro at putting her on the portable potty chair, putting her back to bed, and emptying and rinsing the pot. I may turn out to be a decent nurse yet. Not.

Anyway, it took me FOREVER to go back to sleep, having been snatched awake so suddenly. At 3:30 AM I came up with the names of two former students we were trying to come up with yesterday at lunch. My co-workers will be eternally grateful that I didn't call them to let them know I had remembered.

When I finally went back to sleep, naturally I dreamed about school.

I dreamed that we were outside, and suddenly some buses drove up to take our students on a field trip to a college. I was confused because I didn't know anything about a field trip. I asked a co-worker, who said to me curtly as she continued walking away, "Yes, we discussed this last week." (You would have to know her to appreciate this fully.)

I didn't remember discussing ANYTHING, and there was mass confusion among students AND teachers about this alleged field trip. When I realized some students wouldn't be able to go on the field trip, I started RUNNING back to the school so I could be the teacher who stayed behind with them. One of our male co-workers (the father-to-be I referenced last night) realized the same thing, and he and I were sprinting at break-neck speed to see who could get back to the building first. He's 28 and a coach, and I was holding my own. I told you it was a crazy dream.

When I got back in the building, there were two parents fighting in the front office. (Oddly enough, this dream took place not in our new building, but in an entirely different school where I taught with Neena eight years ago.) The parents were fighting with each other. Hitting each other with their fists and kicking each other. (Sadly, in our county that isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility.)

Once the police were called and things calmed down in the front office, I was standing outside with some of our students, and they were smoking openly. (Sadly, at our school that isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility either.) One of my advisees is a girl who is way pregnant, due in two weeks. And she was smoking in my dream. I was FURIOUS with her, and I asked her, "Why are you trying to kill your baby?" I was so angry. Then the alarm went off, and I was really, really angry.