Yesterday, I thought things might be getting better, because I had a nightmare right before I woke up in the morning. To most people, nightmares are not signs that things are looking up, but to me, if I’m getting a deep enough sleep for a nightmare to develop then that usually means my sleep is improving. Usually, after a long period of highly disordered sleep, I’ll have two or three nights of nightmares in a row as things are getting back to normal.

It’s as if all the nightmares I would have had during the time of my insomnia crowd out the door to my unconscious mind all at once. Like they’ve all been locked up together in a room for too long. In fact I can picture it now….

Sort of like the jury room in the Henry Fonda version of 12 Angry Men only with out the long table….but with the 1950’s type fan that only works intermittently. I imagine there’s a phone on a beat up gray metal desk and into it a dapper but frustrated man is speaking while clutching a sheaf of papers

“Hello, is this Central Command for Tea’s Brain? Look, I’m with the IRS and I need to know how much longer this is going to take. I had an appointment to scare the hell out of this woman last week, and now I find out I got bumped by a bunch of cannibals from the original King Kong movie!” he pauses, listens, “Oh for the love of God! Don’t give me all that double talk about GABA and Selective Serentonin Reuptake Inhibitors! You have no idea what it’s like to be locked up in a room with Monster Breath for a week! Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t you know who I AM?! No, no, I don’t have amnesia – oh crap. They hung up on me! Do you believe that?”

“I beg your pardon. I’m a Monster Mortgage Payment, not Monster Breath” says a huge mail box. When it opens its mouth huge packs of bills stamped “Super Past Due”, “Foreclosure” and “Repossession” drop out.

“Whatever. You still stink” the IRS man says.

“Hey, watch your mouth, Tax Man!” a thin lady with wild gray hair pushing a walker with empty aluminum cans in the basket and a Target bag as a pocketbook says. She zips up and heads out the door.

“Wait for me!” hollers a bright red gargoyle lurching along like Quasimodo, unable to keep up. He’s wearing a nametag that says “Hello! My name is Intractable Back Pain!”

“Wait a minute, how’d she get out?” The IRS man asks.

“Oh, Fear of Irreversible Disability Works a double shift. After all we have a basis in reality!”

“All Days, all shifts, all hours!” the homeless woman on the walker shouts gleefully from the hall. She reopens the door and hollers at back pain “Hurry up, will you?”

“For a disabled person she certainly gets around” Back Pain remarks, lurching out the door.

“What do you mean a basis in reality? A tax audit is as real as it gets!”

One of Four Large Malignant Neoplasms sitting by the window starts laughing. “Whata you laughin’ at?” his buddy asks him.

“I just think it’s funny – Disability works all the time. How’s that for logic?”

“Dreams aren’t supposed to make sense, you Overgrown Polyp.”

All of the Tumors are wearing name tags too: They say “The Hub’s Cancer Comes Back!” “Mom’s Cancer Comes Back!” “Dad’s Cancer Comes Back” and the 4th one says “Surprise! It’s Cancer!” Surprise has a yellow smiley face balloon tied to one of it’s appendages and is wearing a party hat. The others have porkpie hats on what might be their heads – at least the end that’s facing upward.

“Oh, shut up and deal” says Surprise.

The door opens again and a large pair of green polyester pants, the type marketed to ladies my mother’s age, comes in, throws itself into a chair and begins to weep loudly, holding it’s cuffs up near it’s elastic waistband.

“What’s your problem?” the IRS guy asks.

“I’m all washed up!” the pants wail.

“Well you certainly are ugly, I’d say you’re still a nightmare” the Mailbox says cheerfully.

“No, no, you don’t understand! Actual Back Pain pulled, like a triple, and these were the only things Tea could get on this morning. She wore me to work! She’s wearing them now! I’m no longer a nightmare, I’m a reality! And she’s almost over it!”

“Oh, I might as well call the office. Even people at the Social Security Administration don’t wear anything that ugly. I’m never going to get out of here…..”