Reoccuring Dreams

I had one of those dreams again last night.  One of those dreams that reoccur, but you don't really know why.  Usually, my reoccuring dream takes me back to one of the places I use to work, and in the dream, I am going BACK to work there, after having quit some years prior.  Last night, I was going back to work at IGA, the grocery store I worked at when I was 15-18. 

IGA held a lot of good, and not so good memories for me...good mostly because of the people, bad mostly because of everything else.  The pay was lousy, the management sucked, the job was, well, would you like pushing 16 bags of groceries out to somebody's car when it's pouring down rain?  Yeah, me either.

The ultimate parting of the IGA ways came after an employee meeting in which my cousin Scott and I were given a reaming by our boss, a real mouth of a guy, named Gary.  Scott and I had both been recruited to work at the store by my brother, Andy, who had, at the point of the aforementioned meeting, wisely gotten out of the IGA circle.  Scott and I had both worked at the store for  better than 3 years, and we had climbed the rankings from rookie carry outs, to top dogs.  We knew we were the best, because our names were first on the schedule...pretty impressive, I know...but no photos, and no autographs, please!!

Anyway, we had make our way up the ranks, and we were the idols of the newbies coming in.  I guess that must have made ole Gary jealous.  When meeting time came around, Gary starts in on us...

"Stuff just isn't getting done around here...shelves aren't getting straightened, and blah blah, I'm a 50 year old IGA employee and I'm bossing around 16 year olds, blah..."

Then he went on to say things weren't getting finished on the days WE worked!!

Screw it.  Scott got up and made towards the door.  I was right on his heels.  We were two of the only people who did the work, and he's calling us out.  What a  joke!!  I kept walking, Scott stayed behind and ripped Gary a new one, all the while calling out everyone in the meeting, making them admit we weren't at fault.

We clocked out, broke our  time cards, and never returned...well, Scott went back some years later and did some night cleaning work there, I think, but I never went back...

Except in those dreams.  Each time I am going back, and somehow, even though I should be ashamed that I am in my late twenties and I am going to work at IGA, I feel like I am the top dog again.  I break through the line at the time clock, and punch in, chest extended.

"Hey, you can't clock in yet!!  It's 7 til, and we can only clock in at 6 TIL!!"

"Shut up, pimple face, I can do what I want, I use to work here, and I know everything about the store, and you know nothing!!"  Insert sinister laugh here.

Then, of course, the dream takes a turn for the worse.  I go to the back room and I really DON'T know how to do anything.  I walk around aimlessly as Pimple Face runs circles around me.  Then, I go home.  The dream continues, and I have the deep feeling that I should be at work, but I am skipping out...you know that feeling?  I wake up thinking I was suppose to have worked at IGA yesterday, and I didn't even call in to say I wasn't coming in.

Then I remember it was a dream...and I know this because IGA (my first job) is no longer IGA...Kerasotes Cinema 5 (my 2nd job) is gone...KMart in the Burg, Gone...Union Bank, gone...the only job that I worked at which is still around is American Rental.  I had that dream once, too...

Maybe the dreams are telling me to get a new job...go back to work at a previous job...maybe, they are saying I need to start learning some new stuff, because even the easy jobs I had are evolving, and if I don't catch up with the times, there will always be a Pimple Faced kid to take my place.  Is there no justice in the world?