- being laid off, but it was at Quintrex, a company that I worked at for 12 years from 10/1/98 - 10/1/2010.
- LJS (the CEO) asked me to come into his office.
- He always had scented candles lit in his office and I always loved being in that room and so, of course, in my dream, the scented candles were lit. He showed me a piece of paper and said that I was no longer necessary for the operation of the company.
- I then returned to my desk and proceeded to box up my personal items. Then, I walked out the door in tears.
- The next thing I know, I was a judge in a high school talent show where each contestant played two instruments.
- There was a kid with a guitar strapped around his neck sitting behind a drum set.
- He didn't have a name but I'll call him Bill.
- Bill started playing a boring guitar solo that ripped off every lick Eddie Van Halen ever has recorded. Karen was there telling me how I should rate Bill as the best player in the world and that if I didn't give Bill the highest rating, I didn't know anything about music. Bill was not a good player and I didn't give him the highest rating. Karen looked at me and asked if I was deaf.
- The next thing I know, I'm driving down First Avenue in Cedar Rapids, looking for Nick Mart, who I used to work with at Quintrex. I don't know why I was looking for him, but I was. When I couldn't find him, Karen called me a failure and a miserable excuse for a man.
- The last thing I remember in this dream was I saw my life flash before me. I saw a bunch of the bullies that made my life a living hell from elementary to junior high to high school. I saw:
- Greg Hrubes
- Jeff McGuire
- Tim Keese
- Darn Utley
- Todd Miller
- and they were all looking at me, ready to beat me up. Instead of being beat up by them, as I passed by them, I kicked each one of them in the balls and punched them in the nose* without any ounce of my soul not being exerted through my fist.
- Then I woke up.
- There's being laid off - perhaps because of the uncertainty about my job, as I mentioned the other day.
- There's the vivid recollection of LJS's office - perhaps because I have scented candles in the den.
- There's music - perhaps because I spent a lot of time yesterday organizing my music files.
- There's Karen not liking my music - perhaps because our musical tastes have truly gone separate ways over the last 20+ years with me liking Five Finger Death Punch, Bayside, Shinedown, and other heavier acts and her liking Christian contemporary music that gets played on Life 101.9 FM.
- There's Karen not being happy when I could not find something - perhaps because I could not find the van title recently. and me looking for what I can not find, which echoes not being able to find the van title in the den a couple of weeks ago.
- There's the bullies - perhaps because I watched "My Bodyguard."
* This part of the dream, about punching bullies, probably has a lot to do with re-watching the 1980s film "My Bodyguard" and the picked upon kid is advised to "punch him in the nose" - https://youtu.be/pachHZTZZic?t=295- as seen below. And, by the way, the part of this scene where the dad and son are looking at girls through the telescope is a funny scene, especially when the dad says, "I'm older, I need this" as he nudges his son out of the way (at the very end of the scene: https://youtu.be/zcBR2gH6D74?t=1568 es
See this page for the entire movie.