Work, Boba, Trekking, Anger

I was at work except that it was bright, for once, and it didn’t much look like work because the place had been turned into tea shop. At first it was in the physical space of work, but then it moved to being part of a mall. I was sitting at the bar while watching everyone else go through first. My sister and her husband went through amongst other people. When it was my turn, I walked up to the counter and asked my boss who was behind the counter how it worked. He went through the spiel for new customers and gave me a rewards card for the store. I ended up choosing some food items. I walked away towards the heart of the mall with my food and enjoying it when I realized that I had forgotten to order some bubble tea! I went back and waited in line to ask about the bubble tea. While waiting, I took a good look at all the different flavors available and was happy to learn that you could customize any flavor you’d like. The plan was the choose two and bring home one for my brother to try. I could do half sherbet and half lemonade, etc. All of the flavors had fun names like Hurricane, or Huff, or Fluff. In the end I decided to just order one drink because they were kind of expensive, and I wanted to buy some of their dessert snacks. One of the shelves was going to be 30% off, too, as they would be expiring in the near future. I had my eye on the snack-sized mint brownies, and basically anything mint.

Then I was with an old friend of mine and other people. We were all walking in a line. We made it to the side of a very busy road, and I watched as a small dog that dodged my attempt to snatch it up ran across the road. I grabbed my friend’s arm and hid my eyes against her shoulder, not wanting to see it get squished. Miraculously, it made it across to the grassy side, but then there were about 10 kittens, cats, and cute things running around over there. No one else seemed to care about it and the motorists never even slowed down. We continued our walk up the unprotected side of the road. I looked back to see that, of course, most of the animals had become roadkill. Motorists still showed zero sign of slowing down. I heard someone’s radio crackle and request made for highway cleanup because it had the potential of becoming really gross really fast. When I turned back around, I saw that my friend had just crossed the road with the rest of the group. I was the last one. I called out, asking what in the world we were doing, and a voice exasperatedly informed me that we were on a hike and needed to follow the group. Shrugging, I hopped across the road using the fish-shaped wooden piece inlaid into the road. Upon reaching the wooded side, I saw that it was less a path, and more an obstacle course. What in the world!? Very much being left behind, I tried really hard to go fast, but I found myself unable to breathe properly as I attempted to squeeze myself through the very narrow openings. I was getting exhausted, my body hurt, and I couldn’t understand how everyone else had passed through so easily. Was I that large?

Eventually I came out in a very rural area, a clearing in the woods with farmland/grassland butting up next to it. The rest of the group was long gone and I was with someone, though I’m not sure who. The place seemed familiar with the neatly organized trailer homes set up in what appeared to be a small colony. Except no one was around. The person I was with plucked something out of the ground which turned out to be a vegetable. Then it hit me: this was the town I created in a video game years ago. I walked up the dirt road a bit, away from the garden plot and saw that the ground was highlighted as if someone had selected the area for building. I guess I’d been distracted and hadn’t yet built anything there. Some stuff happened. I couldn’t figure out what to do next and then my grandma decided to build a building on the highlighted plot despite my protests. As it turns out, she was right–that was what needed to happen next. The building was automatically filled with cat furniture and unlocked the next missions. I needed to place a Meowth from my team in there in order to upgrade and protect the building. That meant that I had to pull my Meowth from managing my money to doing that. It was okay, I had others that could fill in the financial stuff.

Then I was back at work, and it was work itself. I was really happy because you could see the beach outside the windows. There was a family with a mom and some of her daughters (in their late teens and early 20s). I walked up to my boss who was talking to the mom and said something jovially to her. The mom got super angry and immediately demanded that they leave and that had no right to talk to her the way that I did. I was shocked still, unable to comprehend what had just happened. I apologized to her twice because clearly, she had misheard what I’d tried to say, but she would have none of it. She was making a massive scene and I was getting furious, myself, because I felt she just wanted any excuse to be nasty to me. We’d been seeing this family ever since the kids were little. She had been one of those moms that treat everyone not the doctor like scum of the earth. After trying to calm down and deciding what to do, I marched over to where she was in an operatory. One of her kids was getting an exam and another was standing there, waiting. I came in and laid into her about not even bothering to give me any mind simply because she had misheard my words and despite me apologizing. She was seething with rage for being shown up and uncovered in front of her own kids. I looked over to the standing daughter and saw both humiliation and defeat from this type of thing being a common occurrence with her mom. Then I understood. I’d always liked her kids and knew that no matter what I said, it would never change anything with the mom. It just felt good to level with her.

Then I woke up 15 minutes late.