Fantasies

I've been thinking about fantasies lately, and realized mine have gone a little rogue.  I used to have the normal ones - variations on love, sex, sucess, the lottery.  Not so much anymore.

A prize-winning key chain collection at the fair

I woke up groggy from a nap the other day, the way I do at this time of year (by "this time of year", I mean all of it except for July and a wee bit into August), and had that disembodied vague feeling, like I have to get up again?  How many times must one rise up in a single lifetime?  And then I realized that I didn't have to get up, I could stay in bed for a few days, possibly a week, before anyone would notice -- no one counts on me for anything timely at this point in my life, so I laid there for a while trying to determine whether that's freedom or failure, all the while hearing Janis Joplin is singing in the background of my mind.  As I considered the options available, I realized that all I wanted is to be in a hardware store.

I wanted to be around people who are moving forward with their lives, people who need supplies and tools because they have stuff going on, things to build and repair.  The hardware store is so soothing and optimistic.  But sheesh, getting from nap position to a hardware store, yikes.  Mount Everest.  But I put my oxygen tank and crampons on, suited up, and dragged myself to the little hardware store in town.  I walked up and down all of the aisles, but it wasn't really what I was looking for.  Too many people like me in there, people I know or should, people who seem more nappish and confused than industrious.  And there's no lumber, and not many power tools either.  Lumber.  I needed to be around lumber.

I got back in the car and drove to the big box store, another 20 minutes, and ahh, there it was.  I walked around looking at stuff for about an hour, maybe two, I lost track.  I fondled stuff I don't need and don't know how to use, but I wish I did.  All the people around me were super-focused; they were oblivious to everything but the project at hand.  People even absent-mindedly bumped into me, they were so distracted by their industriousness.

I restrained myself from buying a kit to build a workbench, which wasn't easy.  It mostly came down to the fact that I can't carry 9 8-foot long 2 x 4's in my car.  Oh, right, and that I don't need a work bench.  That's the other part.

Some people dream of being rich and having a theater room or a swimming pool in their home.  All I really want is a small bedroom with a hotplate attached to a Home Depot so I can hitchhike on the industriousness happening in there after a nap.  That's it, my big fantasy.  No trench coats and leather, no flowers, no being seduced by a stranger on a bus.  Just to live near a giant soul-less big box store full of stuff I don't need and people I don't know.  Does that seem okay?