weirdest dream ever

I've had some strange dreams in my life. I'm dreamed in foreign languages, in black & white, with subtitles, and I once had a dream with credits at the end. But the dream I had last night blew all of that away.

In this dream, I was at my parents' house in Illinois, and most of my extended family was there. For some reason, I was talking about selling our car & buying Surly Big Dummy. I postulated that I could run all the errands I currently do in the station wagon with the Dummy since it has tons of cargo capacity. Given the chance, I'd loose a car in favor of a cargo bike.

This is where things stop making sense.

My uncle Steve says something to the effect of "Well that will never work. You can't carry cargo on a bike, and you'll probably get hit by a car!"

At this point in the dream, my uncle Steve has morphed in to John McCain. Seriously. He's wearing the standard-issue Republican outfit; Navy suit, white shirt, red tie & American flag pin. I think all of the McCain TV ads are getting to me. I'm more than a little freaked out by this.

Anyway, I tell McCain, "A Big Dummy can totally take the place of a car. I'll show you." And we proceed to walk down to Nokomis Cycles. This the bike shop closest to my house in Minneapolis, so the dream has shifted there. I know it's weird, but just go with it.

So we walk in to the shop & I say to Dwight, the owner, "Hey Dwight. I need to take a Dummy for a spin." Dwight says, "OK, but you need to wear a helmet." So he grabs a couple of helmets off the shelf & hands them to McCain & I. Dwight is a great guy. He's even looking out for me in my unconscious state.

McCain & I hop on the bike & head out. I'm pedaling, he's riding on the snap deck. If the mental image of that doesn't make you laugh your ass off, you may be dead.

I decide to go to the Home Depot off hwy 77 & 66th street to prove the awesomeness that is Surly bikes. Surlys truly are fantastic. I really want to get a Conundrum next, but Marney said she won't be seen with me if I'm on a unicycle. I even named one of our cats Surly. Surly the cat likes cheese, bacon, and he farts a lot. He's also terribly uncoordinated and falls off the coffee table on a weekly basis. I love that fuzzy little stink bomb.

Back to the dream - McCain is impressed by how many people yell out "sweet bike!" as we cruise down Cedar Ave. He's starting to warm to the idea of bikes as cargo carriers.

Once at Home Depot (I wish we would have gone to my local store Hudson's ACE - but what are you going to do?) we lock up the Big Dummy, grab a cart & do some shopping. We bought like, 5 gallons of paint, a six foot ladder & some 2x4s. At the check-out, McCain said "Oh, let me get this." and put the purchase on his AmEx.

Once all of our booty was stashed safely in the Xtracycle bags we headed for home. Upon arrival, McCain said, "Well you proved me wrong. I guess you really can get by with a bike instead of a car."

Then we went inside, where McCain helped my wife & I paint our living room. After painting for a half hour or so, Surly the cat jumped on my back and I woke up.

Wow. The WTF-ness of this dream is just staggering. Even though I'm a cynical bastard when it comes to politics, it's nice to know that the part of me that believes there's good in all of us hasn't died. It's just been relegated to my dreams where it converts warmongers to bike fans.