Dream: Getting Out of Dad's Car

Dream 20040201, 8:00 AM:

Mom and Dad and my brother R. and I are going somewhere in a car. It’s like one of the cars that we had when we were kids; a big gas-guzzling Detroit Dinosaur. It seems like R. and I are grown, though. Dad is getting angry about something, and shouting. I don’t remember the content, just the tone. We are stopped at an intersection, and I tell R. to get out, and I do as well. Mom is freaking out, but I tell them to just drive away, we’ll sort it out later.

R. and I walk through a small shopping center, kind of just wandering more than shopping. We go into a fast food restaurant, I think a McDonald’s, and I remember that the Women’s Chorus has access to a hospital nearby, and we might be able to stay there. I call them on my cell phone, and somehow arrange to get there. I think we may have walked. It’s more of a hospice than a hospital, though; there are rows and rows of beds out in the open. I find one, as does R., and we curl up to sleep. The beds are small, but comfortable. There are nurses walking back and forth, and lots of people milling around.

Mom and Dad arrive, looking for us. They are panicky. I have kind of mixed emotions; I am glad to see them, but still angry about Dad’s temper in the car, and it feels like if we just smile and forget about it, it’s letting him off the hook.

We have to go through a paperwork process to get out. I remember standing in a long line carrying manilla folders, and when we get to the end there is a man inside a steel cage like at a concert ticket stand. For some reason, R. has to give me one day of his life for getting him out of the car, and we have to have them stamp our folders to make the change official.