There's a certain chemical smell in the air which reminds me of New Jersey. Go on, laugh it up about chemicals and New Jersey. I don't know how to classify it but I always associate it with the smell of wood. Not wood but the chemicals used to treat wood. Before today, the only place where I would catch this smell was on Rahway Avenue in Union, NJ. This was usually near Morris Ave.. It was one of the worst parts of my commute to college back in the day. Why didn't I take another route? Because Route 22 was always horrible and not taking Rahway would make it take that much longer considering the traffic.
A wee bit later I discovered that raddidge wouldn't be coming to visit me and Spot. Her headlights were left on all night and the battery had died a miserable death. The brother with jumper cables wasn't home so she was stranded and couldn't make the drive. Next weekend, she says, she'll come and visit with me.
Anyway I got dinner for myself, read about astronomy, researched 2730 Barks and rounded out the night reading about Woody Woodpecker and World War III.
Shit, I could make a decent down payment on a house. A small house but I wouldn't need anything more. Just room for Spot, raddidge and myself.
Outside I ran into some kid who was living in the upstairs apartment. He started acting all sullen at me so the first thing I did was punch his lights out. Next thing I ran like a scared little girl. Ended up hiding in a King Soopers warehouse full of soda. One of the strange items that were going to hit the shelves was spicy jalapeno soda. Now this wasn't one of those brands like Goya exclusively targeted at the hispanic community but an actual nationwide brand in my dream, nothing you would know in waking life. I skulked towards the back and ripped open the twelve pack and discovered it was full of Safeway brand seltzer water. Safeway runs King Soopers? King Soopers runs Safeway? Taking a few cans for the long walk home, I left the apocryphal twelve back behind me.
Back home, the kid's friends were camped out back but they seemed oblivious to me. The kid was ranting about how he was going to kick my fat, old ass. When I found the suitcase there was substantially less in it but still enough for my own designs.
Everything became a vignette about Winnie the Pooh becoming the pope. He would climb four stories up a ladder to a platform in a parapet. He'd peer through a little wooden, mechanical device that looked like it was created by gnomes. Outside the sunlight was far too bright and directly viewing this light could physically push him backwards without the protection of this device. That's when the windows opened, sunlight blasted in and knocked his overstuffed ass to the floor only to be buried by masonry.
