My Dreamland is Scary ...

Not that it does not have anything weird, odd, scary and downright sad to pull out of my psyche, but still.

I have not been feeling well and have done a bit of napping. Napping for me during the day is a highly undesirable event. Having all sorts of weird, scary and downright creepy dreams - but I figure sleep is sleep - even if I am being chased by monsters and sometimes my body just needs sleep ... or what ever it is ...

But today the most bizarre, startling thing happened. I was back in 1985 that's NINETEEN EIGHTY FIVE - what - 25 years ago? I was a 'Computer Engineer' at Morton Thiokol and worked as a 'small systems specialist' which basically meant I kept the tons of small computers running, fixed them when they were broken - and the other 12 men in my group worked varying jobs on the four very large IBM mainframes.

It was an annoying job. It was a job for a computer detective. Interviewing the major suspects - computers generally don't just up and die for no reason - thus the one that touched it last was the major suspect. First question: DID YOU INSTALL, PLUG IN ANYTHING ON THIS COMPUTER? The answer was always a resounding 'no'. And then they would mutter that some 'little girl' was no way, no how gonna ever fix this damn thing .... under their breath but loud enough for me to hear.

Generally it ended this way - after 3, 4 or 5 hours I would continue to ask the same question in varying ways and would eventually get a 'oh, wait' I installed this game, this mouse, this device this WHATEVER ...yeah - right before it stopped working ... I would uninstall ... what ever they had put on there ... and what do you know - computer was as good as new.

Idiots ....

But one day - I was called to to strangest building. As a car took me up there, my stomached lurched. Painted on the side of the building ... THE SIZE OF THE ACTUAL BUILDING ... was this sign:

Yeah, and me trying to get pregnant.

I tentatively walked in and was met by 4 men. They explained that they were all scared of the computer, it just generally ran by itself and now it was not running.

I remember looking at it - a unix - not something I was great at - and asked for the users manual. The rounded up a greasy book - that had been thumbed through by someone with filthy hands. I looked around and realized that the entire place was filthy. I had no idea what they did.

I mean - what does bio hazard materials have to do with building Solid Booster Rockets for the Space Shuttle I ask you? Sitting down on a creaky filthy chair I started in. It was broken - I was suspecting that it might just be the filth that did it in. My last job at JPL took me to airport hangars (on that Top Secret project I can't talk about) and the major problem we had there was keeping the computers clean enough that they didn't spontaneously up and die - which they often did.

Suddenly there was an alarm! The 4 men weren't running out of the building but I decided to ask if I should be concerned, hey hey, about, well, you know - anything? They said I was toast if there was a 'three short whistle' alarm. I remember thinking I really, really didn't want to be there.

I remember having to ask to go to the bathroom - since there was only a 'mens'. They told me 'just a minute' they needed to go clean it up. Forty five minutes later they told me to go ahead ... eeek!

The whole experience was ... unsettling to say the least. I remember resolving their problem (for the life of me I forget how ...) and being so relieved when the car came and picked me up - dropping me off in the safety of the administration building (even in the event of a huge explosion - not common - but did occur - you were working with rocket propellant - it just blew out windows - didn't flatten the two administration buildings since they were located a ways away from the production of the rocket propellant and a hill or something if I remember right was between us).

Why the trip down memory lane? This afternoon my mind, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER decided to relive that day. Everything in my dream was EXACTLY as I remember it - down to begging to use the toilet.

The clicker - as I was busily working on the computer, trying to figure out what was going on (a little hazy, I must admit) three short bursts of the whistle ... and I awoke shaking in a cold sweat...