I walk into a McDonald's. It is very strangely laid
out: there seem to be two ordering counters, one on one
side of the building with the customary eating area in
front of it, the other on the other side, with no eating
area, just a few feet between it and the wall. The two
are connected by a narrow passageway with a few tables
in it.
As if that's not odd enough, the small one has a lot of
clear Visqueen-type plastic draped all over it, as though
some kind of construction work is being done, and the place
is generally a mess.
I walk around to the more airy side, but for some reason,
I don't seem to be able to order there. Confused, I'm
walking down the passageway to try my luck in the
construction zone, when I hear an employee calling out
"Yerricide!" in an attempt to deliver food to someone.
I'm just walking past a customer seated at one of the
passageway tables when he indicates that the order belongs
to him. The employee leaves it with him. The man has a
large cardboard placard with a lot of handwriting on it,
with his name in larger letters in the middle. I can't
quite make out what it says exactly, and he puts it on
the bench next to him where I can't see it anymore.
So I ask him, "How many I's are there in your name?". He laughs and says, "One". "I thought so", I
reply. "I'm C-Dawg", expecting him to understand that that is
my Everything2 handle. He says, "Hi, C-Dawg;" and gestures to his companion. "And this is Danielsen". I
assume that that is another noder's handle, but I looked
it up before I started writing this and there is no such
person.
Despite the fact that this is like no McDonald's I have (or
anyone else has) ever seen, and the area outside is totally
unfamiliar, I get the impression that we're in my very own
town of Santa Barbara, CA, and that yerricde is just
passing through. I look outside and see that there are a
lot of backpacks and a few suitcases
piled in the middle of the intersection. I somehow get
the impression that a tour bus had stopped here, and that
yerricde and Ms. Danielsen had gotten off of it. Apparently
it was no longer part of the plans of anyone who had been
a passenger.
Yerricde asks me some polite "Who are you and why are you
here" type questions and we chatter for a moment. Then I
continue on to the other side of the restaurant and order
a breakfast burrito meal. Returning to the seating area,
I feel no need to continue hobnobbing[1];
nor does Yerricde.
I take a seat and eventually a tray is delivered to me.
Containing just two breakfast burritos, I ask the employee
delivering it if this is what I paid seven dollars for.
In the midst of that discussion, I wake up.
For the past month or so, I've been remembering some of
my dreams, which before had been rather uncommon. Most
of them have had something to do with my personal life,
and in that way have made some sense (as far as dreams
ever do make sense). This one breaks that pattern.
I rarely eat at McDonald's, although I did once last week
[WolfDaddy's fault :), though he didn't
request it ]. I don't know
yerricde, though we both attended Rose-Hulman Institute
of Technology (with probably fifteen or twenty years intervening).
Now the question is, should I go back to bed? I have to
get up in an hour...
[1] The Everything2 entry for hobnob by Webster1913 doesn't seem to include the meaning
to chit-chat, which is what I always thought it meant.