I Dream in 2½ by 3½

I know I've been neglected the old site, but I do not feel really sorry about it.  Sometimes it is necessary to step away every once in a while and decide whether or not something is a good thing.  This was probably even more precipitated by the fact I've begun dreaming about baseball cards again.

Some may think dreaming of cards is awesome, but to me, knowing my own personality and my addictive behavior, this grabbed my attention in the wrong way.  It makes me think of the former Wax Heaven (I just realized WH is back in an altered state - I really must get out more) and his post about how cards were making him neurotic, thus he decided to shed his cards and focus only on Canseco.  When one has consecutive dreams for over a week about the cardboard menagerie with some of those dreams making me wake up in a cold sweat, it made me do some introspection.

When I was younger, one of my all time favorite dreams is having an amusement park entirely to myself.  A park similar to Disneyland (not Disneyworld, boo!), where every ride is mine for the riding.  At the end of one ride similar to the Haunted Mansion, I rode the conveyor belt out of the bowels of the ride to find myself in a shop.  Not just any shop, but a card shop with bottom barrel prices.  I went mad in my dream, scooping up 50s Topps for pennies on the dollar and loading myself down so heavily that I had trouble making my way out of the amusement park.  Great dream, except for Donald Duck confronting me in a barren barn during a thunderstorm.

I digress to last couple of weeks, where my dreams took a more sinister turn.

One dream had me running through my house, trying to lock all the doors as some mysterious hand kept trying to claw its way in.  I ran madly down the hall and then found my self in the card closet (Uncle Doc's Closet to be exact, which is what the card closet has been named in several houses because I had to try and keep my nephews from getting their hands on cards they shouldn't have been mangling - which is where my email name comes from and the phrase "stay out of Uncle Doc's closet" that my mom would tell my nephews).

Anyways, as I baracaded myself in the UDC, a wolfman-like hand was trying to pry the door open.  I began screaming and thrashing, then my wife woke me and told me I was having a nightmare.

Wife: "Wake up, wake up!  You're having a nightmare. What's wrong?"

Me: "Someone was trying to break into the house."

Wife" "Oh no, sounds awful!"

Me: "They were trying to steal my baseball cards."

Silence for a few seconds

Wife: "Go back to sleep!!!"

The next night, I dreamed I was in a Wal-Mart-esque superstore, and while wandering the aisles, I noticed some binders with vintage Topps.  The vibrant colors of 75 and the pristine black borders of 71 were beckoning me.  I looked at the smiling face price tag and saw that every card was a penny.  I moved in for the kill, and then a line a mile long formed in front of me.  A line full of people who I know, but know not what they look like.  Night Owl, GCRL, WSC, Thorzul, Beardy, Sooz, Troll, etc.

I grimaced at the back of the line, itching to tear through the binders, all the while someone further up the line was hooting and hollering at their finds.  I grew anxious and tried to move up the line, but now security was involved and keeping the line in order and preventing jumping.

By the time I got to the front of the line, all that was left was 87 Topps.  Another nightmare indeed.

When I woke from this dream it left me hollow.  All of a sudden I am having nightmares about baseball cards.  What does this tell me, Dr. Freud?  I can only surmise that my desire to HAVE all cards is creeping back.  It may not make sense to you, but I must fight this yearning.  No one, save for Bill Gates, Keith Olberman or Wayne Gretzky can have ALL the cards.  It's financially impossible and irresponsible for a regular Joe like me to want, need all cards.

I don't know where this is leading me, but if the nightmares persist, I may have to reevaluate dipping my toe back into collecting.  Cardboard is nice, but cardboard doesn't hug or love you like your family.

Me