Pseudo-semi-regular excretions from Bill's Brain. Professional driver on closed road - do not attempt!

 
Casket Dream

Okay, I had a fairly strange dream last night, and it just now came back to me.

I was trying to get somewhere - I think it was a theme park or something, because I remember having to walk under a rusty metal forest of scaffolding for rollercoasters and other rickety, decrepit rides. At one point, the path I was taking became the tracks of a decommisioned rollercoaster, and I was walking carefully on the ties to avoid falling.

After some time, I came to what I thought was the ticket booth to the carnival/park/fair/whatever. It was a large, boxy black building with no windows and a small door in the front. So, I walked in.

I stepped into what seemed to be a casket showroom. There were many different rooms, and each was draped with red and black silk and lit from above with dim track lighting. The first rooms I encountered had some pretty run-of-the-mill caskets - black with brass handles & nameplates, or the occasional white or woodgrain number thrown in for variety.

As I wandered further into the building, however, things started to get strange - as if it wasn't already strange enough. I saw a casket made to look like a large phone junction box - for dedicated telephone technicians who have passed on, no doubt. I saw another that looked like - or perhaps it WAS - a telephone booth. With clear glass windows.

Others had brand names on them. Budweiser. Nike. Marlboro (this last one raised a chuckle). I was expecting to see Tommy Hilfiger or FUBU caskets, but I never did.

Then, I came to the employee break room - well lit, with OSHA posters, dry-erase boards with sales numbers, and a time clock & cards on the walls. Two men in dark suits sat on peeling-green metal chairs at a table made from a lovely mahogany casket sitting on sawhorses. They were eating sandwiches.

One of them jumped up, shook my right hand, shoved a brochure of the latest models in my left, and led me back out to the showroom floor in one smooth motion. He was glad to see me, he said. He was very glad that I came to him for my "eternity needs," he said. He could tell I was the type of person who wanted to spend eternity in a unique way, he said. Then, he led me to where they kept the "unique" caskets.

We stepped into a room with grass on the floor, and a clear blue sky above. It looked as if we were in the middle of a massive graveyard, with rolling green hills dotted with grave markers for miles in every direction - but when I drew close to one of the walls, I could see that it was just a very good illusion. In the middle of the room, there were various strange devices.

Some looked like small Ed-Wood-B-movie-style flying saucers. Each was lined with silk and held a smiling dummy dressed in a tux. Some were beds, but with a lid that closed over the body.

I started getting a very strong, and very weird, sense of my mortality.

My salesman brought me to the far end of the room, where he said we would find the model that would suit me the best. He stood beside it and grinned a self-assured grin.

It was a finely-crafted lawn chair, trimmed in brass. A tux-wearing dummy sat in it, covered with a thick wool blanket. His brown leather wingtips stuck out at the bottom. My salesman whipped the blanket off with a flourish to reveal the dummy, who sat there, unprotected from the elements of nature and carrion-craving animals.

I was about to ask why he thought spending eternity on a lawn chair being eaten alive by worms and vultures suited my personality so well, when I heard a voice coming from the other side of the chair.

I peered over to see a small speaker on a pole - the type you might find at a drive-in movie theater. A woman's voice was coming out of the speaker. She was talking to the dummy, telling him how much she missed him, and how she'll be there soon to see him, and how she will bring some other family members with her. She also mentioned that some family members might want to get a peek under the blanket. That is, if the dummy didn't mind, of course.

My salesman explained that, for an additional charge, you could get this speaker installed that would let your loved ones call a special number (for a nominal fee) that would connect them directly to this speaker at times when they just couldn't make it to your final resting place.

I just stared back at him.

Then I woke up.



What bothers me the most about dreams like this one is how close they can be to reality. Just look at this and this and this. These things didn't bother me yesterday. Now, they do.


Please leave flowers at my lawn chair,
Bill
posted by Dr. Awkward at 9:32 AM

 
It's later now, right?

Like any new toy, I am compelled to play with this one constantly, at least until it no longer entertains me. Sort of like all those grand writing ideas I keep getting... [smirk] So I insist on making another entry, whilst having virtually nothing to say. I sit here, not unlike one of the hundred monkeys with a typewriter, trying to pound out the Great American Novel.

Blargh.

Heh heh. That's a fun sound to make.

Two things I need to mention -

1. Bill's Blog is actually a part of the Bill's Brain website, so if you've arrived here by surfing the Blog scene, then you really need to go to the site. Really. You need. To.

2. I snagged a CD copy of "Frosting on the Beater" by the Posies on eBay for FOUR MEASLEY BUCKS! This is unimportant to anyone except myself, of course, but I just made you read it. Haa haa! QUAKE IN FEAR AS YOU BEHOLD THE POWER I HAVE OVER YOU TO READ MY MEANINGLESS DRIVEL!!! YOU CANNOT STOP NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY!!!

That is all. More later. Go to Bill's Brain.

Blog! Tongs! Spork!
Bill
posted by Dr. Awkward at 9:37 PM

 
Hello. This is my first entry in Bill's Blog.

As expected, I don't know what to say, cuz I wasn't really prepared to write anything. In fact, I didn't even know what a Blog was until about half an hour ago.

Blog is short for WebLog.

"Blog?" You may be asking yourself. "Why is that short for WebLog? Wouldn't WLOG make more sense?"

I asked myself that too.

I'm guessing it's Blog instead of Wlog for one or more of three reasons:

Phonics - "WL" does not make as pleasant a consonant blend as "BL," and makes the speaker sound like he's got a small piece of soft pretzel stuck in his throat.

Hipness - "Blog" sounds like something you'd hear the delinquents in "A Clockwork Orange" say. As in, "Oh yes, my brothers - this Blog is truly horrorshow." The internet is slowly causing us to adopt this odd dystopian future language as our own, and pretty soon we'll be running around in white jumpsuits listening to Wendy Carlos playing Beethoven on monophonic synthesizers and kicking the snot out of each other in front of the Kerova Milk Bar. That is, if we're not doing the old in-out-in-out.

Fun - Like SMOCK or TONGS, Blog is fun to say. Blog. Try it. Blog. Say it with me. Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog. It's almost like a cuss word. You sort of expect someone to take offense at your use of "blog" in otherwise polite and reserved conversation. "Well, I happen to think that's a load of BLOG!" (followed by gasps of utter surprise) Blog blog blog.

That is my blog theory. It belongs to me, Miss Anne Elk.

More later.

Bill
posted by Dr. Awkward at 11:19 AM