So We Meet Again, Standard Oil
I've always been a good sleeper. I stay up way late to write, but once I go to bed, it's a done deal. Right now, though, I'm sitting here and feeling pretty edgy, drinking a Real Sugar Pepsi at 1:25 a.m. because I'm scared I might have the Alabama dream again. I'll explain in a minute.
Earlier this evening I was just settling down to some pre-writing YouTube research, when I happened upon a video of "Dixieland Delight." I shouldn't have let myself watch it, but I did, propelled by the same morbid fascination that paralyzes me staring at the annual termite swarm in my kitchen. Can't. Look. Away.
I couldn't look away from "Dixieland Delight" because one, it's a catchy song, and two, the men singing it have been visiting my dreams since the late 90s.
This is the blog post where I tell the world about my Alabama nightmare.
It all started my freshman year of college. My bed was the top bunk a weird triangle cavern-like room with slanted walls . The first time it happened I woke up gripped with terror and hit my head on the ceiling. The dream sequence I had awoken from was deeply unsettling and dark, and likely the trigger for my poor academic performance that semester and subsequent difficulty making smart life choices (see future blog about my date with Ben Affleck).
I am 41 now, and I've been dealing with Alabama nightmare as frequently as once every three years. The last time it happened I was married and had a pixie cut, so I'm due. I've sat in therapists' offices for various reasons, and I've thought about bringing it up, the dream. But it always seemed like maybe doing that could possibly lead to a high-stakes misunderstanding. I've kept it in as best as I keep things in (which is not super in.) And oh, it's late now, and the house is quiet. The train just went by, and none of my people have a green dot by their name on Facebook Messenger. I'm lonely, and I'm scared if I go to sleep I might have the dream. Do you think maybe if I work it out here and tell you my tale of woe the dream will let me be?
As near as I can tell it's somewhere on the Virginia-West Virginia border and I'm for some reason driving the Chevy Vega of my childhood. I pull into a stereotypical Standard Oil gas station, similar to this one:
I'm murky on the part where I don't actually pump any gas. Instead, I walk into the gas station, which is much larger inside, a labyrinth, almost. Significant moment happens when I look at the snacks and am delighted to find they carry O'Boises. I select a bag of O'Boises. Then, from a few aisles over, I hear a man's voice. He is saying, "Hey. Girl! Come this way." For the first time I notice the old woman behind the counter. She does not look at me. The man with the voice is suddenly in my snack aisle and it's Randy Owen, the lead singer of Alabama. He seems agitated.
My bones are liquidy and it is as if we are in a vacuum or that centrifuge-type ride at the fair where you get pressed to the side of the giant tube until it stops spinning. The thing is that I can't break away from Randy Owen and we snake through the winding little pathways until he pulls me into a back room where there are folding chairs set up, and wedding-themed decorations. Things get real, real fast. There is going to be a wedding. My wedding. I'm being forced to marry Randy Owen.
This is when the other members of Alabama come in through the side door. I've Google imaged them and their names are Teddy Gentry, Jeff Cook, and Mark Herndon. They look like they do here:
One of them is an ordained minister. The room fills with people who are very happy. The people think I should be happy to be marrying Randy Owen, and Randy Owen stands there with his bowl cut and flared nostrils and it's aggressive. I make several attempts to run but cannot physically move or yell. I am married to Randy Owen of Alabama.
Flash forward to just after the wedding. My husband Randy Owen leads me to yet another room in Hell's gas station. It is a sort of back room filled with bric-a-brac and there are buckets. Notably, there is a Confederate uniform hanging on the door. It is muggy and I am keenly aware of the lack of air conditioning. It is now that I grow defiant. I know I must fight my husband Randy Owen and get out of that gas station. My adrenaline swells and I charge at him with a guttural scream. The power dynamic between us shifts and there is my husband Randy Owen sitting on a bucket, petulant. He is ignoring me and I waste no time in cutting out of there as fast as I can. I am flooded with relief as soon as I make it outside. I slew my 80s country dragon.
But where, oh were, are my O'Boises . . .
It's an extremely physical dream and I really can't deal with all that tonight, so I think I'll just sit here and continue dipping these Food Lion vanilla wafers in frosting and write some crazy-ass stories. And I'll do it with a heart made lighter by purging this Southern rock psychodrama I've been keeping in.
I don't know what any of it means. I don't. But I do know I'm still pissed about those chips.
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