Saturday, December 15, 2007

Nightmare

About a week ago I woke up early, shaken by a horrible nightmare. First, some background: I have a 1999 Volvo S70. Now to the nightmare, it's short. I took my car to the dealer to have it worked on, maybe it was a tune-up, that wasn't really part of the dream. The bad dream was picking it up. I went up to the cashier and asked how much it would be. She casually said "Fourteen thousand dollars". "Fourteen thousand dollars?," I said. A horrible feeling of terror swept over me. How could it possibly be $14,000? My worse fear was how I would explain it to my wife that I let them charge me $14,000 for a simple checkup of a car that was worth, at best, $4,000. I remember standing there stunned with a whole bunch of emotions running through me and then I woke up, badly shaken by the whole affair. I got up and went to the bath room and was turning it over in my mind. I was relieved that it was a only a dream but I was still pretty upset about it. There was a mixture of anger at the dealership for not calling me before doing the work and that helpless sensation anyone feels when you don't have control. The emotions I felt at the dealership in my dream stayed with me for a few more hours, wearing off gradually over the morning.

I wonder what Freud would say about this.

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