July 10, 2011
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A Dream
Getting off the Ann Arbor Airport Shuttle, I went to the back to get my luggage. The driver was an older woman, and she grabbed my things and set them on the road. I went to get a cart, the better to wheel them in. The airport had two types of carts, normal shopping carts, and those mini, double-decker shopping carts [just like Uwajimaya, only these carts were gray and white like the ones at Costco]. I grabbed one of each and put my purse in the smaller one. I wheeled them over to the van.
I had two cardboard boxes as my luggage and I stacked them in the larger cart. Another girl was also getting off at my terminal, and she just dragged her bag(s) over to the curb. We were both about to turn and walk in when the driver called out, “You both paid right?” The other girl shouted back that she had prepaid, but I grabbed my wallet out of my purse and hurried over and said I had forgotten. I asked how much it was and the lady said $53.95. I opened my wallet, and it was my green and pink wallet from Gina, but there were only a few ones and fives in it. Floundering [interesting word, floundering - think about it], I flipped it over and looked in the other compartment, for now the inside of the wallet was like my old Target clasp wallet with the two sides. There was only a $2-bill and my Ananth-100 [which actually isn't even in my wallet anymore]. So I asked if I could pay with credit card. [This bit reminded me of the recently-watched "You've Got Mail" scene. "You have no cash? She has no cash! Get in another line lady! This is a cash-only lane."] The driver said sure, and handed me a clip-board to sign.
The clipboard had a large table down the middle listing all the charges, but at the bottom there was no total. The first entry was $53.95 but then there was a discount of $55 something and charges for bags and weird things. So I tried to add up everything in my head and I got to $51.95. I asked the lady if the top number was meant to be $58 and she said she didn’t know. I said my total was $51.95 but she thought I was trying to cheat her. I said, well do you want to add it up yourself? And she glared at me and told me to just sign it and pay her the proper amount. I asked if she had a calculator, and she threw up her hands in frustration. I noticed Rob in the corner of the van and called out to ask him if he had a calculator. He brought it over, but I couldn’t use it because it was reverse-Polish notation or whatever. So I asked him to add it up for me while I read out the numbers. He peered over my shoulder and looked at the table and said it was practically unintelligible. I looked again and noticed that there were two columns, sort of like an accounting spreadsheet, with debits on one side and credits on the other. But some of the debits had negative signs, and I didn’t know if I should have added that number instead of subtracting. Rob did the best he could, and in the mean time I asked him what he was doing in SoCal again [even though we were on the Ann Arbor shuttle, remember]. He said he just had a layover, and he was going to New York. His flight was at 1:59p and he was going to be late if the shuttle didn’t get going soon. I apologized for holding up the shuttle. [Yes, apparently his trip started by going to the airport for the second leg of a layover or something, it doesn't make sense but that's my dreams for you.]
At the end, Rob got the same number as me, so the shuttle driver let it go, and swiped my card [it was the Citicard]. I turned to hug Rob, thanked him for his help, and then left. I waved to Rob as the van drove off, and then I remembered all my stuff was sitting out in the carts on the curb unwatched. I ran over and they were gone! I thought maybe TSA thought the unattended baggage was a bomb and I started to panic. But then in a corner made by the building I saw my two carts. In the basket of the smaller cart was my cloth bag with my pink/green wallet laying open right on the top, but nothing was missing. I had just left it that way when I went to pay the driver I guess. I slid my Citicard back into its slot and closed the wallet, put it back in my bag. I guessed the wind had blown the carts over into the corner and that’s why they weren’t where I had left them.
As I pushed the carts toward the airport entrance, a sunny courtyard appeared on my left. When I looked over, it wasn’t a courtyard at all by a giant park, and the airport had disappeared. An old lady was sitting on a park bench holding a giant bunch of colorful balloons. Her friend asked her why she had bought so many balloons and the old lady said, “Because it’s illegal,” and then opened her hand and let them all go. We all watched the balloons floating into the sky and I remembered a news story about another old lady who bought a red balloon and let it go flying into the sky and was arrested. [And then I woke up with a song in my head, and a terrible sense of heaviness. But with the lingering memory of Rob's warmth and his strong arms around me.]
But I am sick now, my days are numbered. So come all ye young men and lay me down…
