2004-09-19 - 10:22 a.m.
I had a peculiar little dream early this morning. I had gotten a new car, a little Volkswagen Bug (don't ask me why I would buy something like that, and I am not in the market for a new car), and it had some wierd flaws such as every once in a while the seat would fall back and I would have to readjust it. That soon became irritating, because I didn't like the idea of having to take a brand new car in for a repair.
But more peculiar than that, was that it (and all the other new cars that came out that year, whatever year it was, some time in the future, I think) had a tall pole attached to the right front fender and there was a little street lamp attached to the top of the pole. Whatever it was, it was just "the latest thing" and I thought nothing of it, it was simply a "feature" of the new cars. Maybe it was to help illuminate the sidewalk when you are parking on a dark street.
The city I lived in was extremely crowded and I was constantly having to move up and down through the gears (this car was a stick), which was making me mad, and then I got stuck into some really heavy traffic that I just could not stand, so I angrily changed gears, grinding them in frustration, and then did an illegal maneuver by u-turning in traffic in order to get out of there.
After I had done that, I noticed that two signs, kind of like "No Parking" signs, flipped out of the street lamp on the pole that was attached to the car, one sign underneath the lamp and another one above the lamp. The sign underneath the lamp said "Ground the Gears" and the one above the lamp said "Made an Illegal U-Turn."
I was flabbergasted--this device was some kind of driving tattle-tale that, on the bottom sign advertised your mistakes in driving technique, and on the top sign revealed the driving laws you had broken. That way the police didn't have to be on the lookout, they merely had to see the signs. Plus it was socially very embarrassing, like being an adulterer in the Puritan colonies having to have a scarlet "A" tattooed on my forehead, or some other device of social shaming.
I parked the car and saw that there was no way to defeat the sign, you couldn't release them or push them back inside; I guess only a cop or a mechanic had the special key or wrench that released the mechanism.
My next task, I figured, was to find a "rebel" or "unapproved" mechanic who would somehow saw the whole unit off my car's fender and remake the Bug to look like it was a year older (a year before all the models had that feature). I was thinking of going to a mechanic I had known in the early 90s who worked out of his house in the woods and who had rebuilt the engine of the Dodge convertible I used to have. There was nothing criminal about that mechanic, he was just very private. However, in thinking about when I could manage to get out to him, I woke up.
Writing this now, and still not having a clue as to what this peculiar dream might mean, I noticed that I had expressed an atmosphere of being cramped, frustrated, crowded, imposed upon, angry, watched, told on, shamed, and rebellious. There was a sense of being stuck in some kind of totalitarian society where my freedom of movement was severely abridged...it was kind of like a "Toon-Town" 1984-like world.
Somehow, I am sure "stuck" in something, and I better figure or action my way out.
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