Free Samples for One Euro

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s GO!!” My mom urged as she clapped me and my family out the door. Dreams are usually unrealistic, but this one had started out just like true life.  We were going to a show, some small theatre with an unknown cast.  Of course, as it is with my parents—and is beginning to be with me—we were becoming too late to be obsessively early. If we lollygagged any more we would end up being on time. 

God forbid. 

My dad has a way of getting lost in places sometimes.  For example, when we were touring my university, he tried to find his way out of the dining center and wound up wandering the kitchen. Perhaps that explains why my family entered the theater through a back door, which brought us into a backstage dressing room.  A poster for tonight’s show hung on the wall.  Something about Jesus.  A musical.  Jesus Christ Superstar? Oh gosh. I blushed as I walked through.  Excuse me…Sorry…Sorry…Gosh, I hope no one’s naked in here. Actors in sequined costumes, half bronzed and eyelinered looked at us and rolled their eyes. Sorry.

We squeezed through the actors and finally reached the door. Of course, that was the door to backstage.  We apologized to the tech crew and slipped along the right side of the stage and down the stairs to where the audience was seated.  “If we had gone earlier these people wouldn’t have seen us,” I could feel my dad thinking. Because I was thinking it too. Maybe my aunt was right about me becoming him. I still vote democrat, Dad. 

I was about to do the awkward Excuse-me-my-seat’s-on-the-other-side-of-where-you’re-sitting Dance when a friend from college came up to me. She explained to me that other friends of mine were hanging out outside of the theatre and I should say hi to them.  Outside, I found that they were wandering around a cute little pastry shop. If you followed my other blog, you would know that I love pastry shops.  Especially when they have free samples.

And then my dreams came true.  There, resting beautifully on a tall table, were scrumptious squares of sweet somethings, sprinkled with powdered sugar.  I had no idea what they were, but I knew for sure that they would be delicious. I ate one—okay, three—of those spongy little cakes and praised the heavens for party that was going on in my mouth. 

My friends then pointed me to a door at the back of the shop.  “Go check it out, Brian,” they said. But I had learned my lesson about eating small things and going through mysterious doors from Alice and Wonderland, so I refused to go in.  “Just do it,” the urged again, and since I am peer pressure’s female dog, I gave in. 

And then I was transported to a wonderful land with flowers and fairies floating through the sweet air, and—

No, that didn’t happen.

It was actually as if I had just walked through the front door of someone’s shabby, could-be-nice-if-they-fixed-it-up house.  The door closed behind me as Jon Stewart bounded through the entryway with his six bulldogs. (I’m pretty sure Jon Stewart doesn’t own six bulldogs.) He said something funny, like, “I have a bunch of bulldogs!” (I guess you had to be there) and he left. 

And I remained in the entryway.  I turned to my left to go into some sort of old living room.  Couches with torn upholstery and dusty bookshelves surrounded me. A rather modern-looking fan blew some of the stale air around. 

Turning the corner, ran into my friends Carol-Ann and Anthony, a mother and son from New Zealand who gave me a free place to stay while I was in the south of France this summer.  “You’re staying at this hostel too?” they asked.  Weird. This is a hostel.  I was pretty sure I was done with those after I came back from Europe. They walked me around the house, showing me their crappy room and the crappy room I would be sleeping in.  Well, it works for the night, I thought, a phrase I had said to myself many times while traveling in Europe.

Then Carol-Ann and Anthony took me to the basement. We walked through piles of garbage and broken furniture until we reached the T.V. room. “Oh my gosh!” I said, “This T.V. room is just like the one in my basement at home! Our television is a little bigger, though, and the slipcover on our couch is different, but besides that, it’s identical! How strange!”

“Umm…cool, I guess,” Carol-Ann said, apathetically.

“Come on! Isn’t it amazing? I need to call my parents and tell them about it!” I said.

“Whatever.” Anthony said back.

I was pretty frustrated that they didn’t care about this.  We continued our tour around the house (just more garbage) and arrived back at the door from which I had entered earlier.  I had had enough of this hostel, and I knew that I had already missed the show that I was supposed to see. Walking through the door, I noticed that my friends had left. I’ll just grab one more yummy cake thing before I leave. I reached down to take another, and someone violently grabbed my wrist.  It was the storeowner.

“What are you doing?” He demanded.

“I—I’m taking a free sample.” I said, startled.

“There are no free samples here!”

“But they’re sitting out on a – ”

“I don’t care! They cost one Euro each.”

“One Euro?! You charge one Euro for a tiny piece of cake…in America?"

“Yes.”

“Lame.”

And then I woke up.  Another strange and seemingly meaningless dream. My mind is a crazy thing when it’s unconscious.