A column by John Estridge
For anyone that cares, I am writing this at 4:30 a.m.
I have insomnia, at times, not all the time but quite a bit more often as I get older.
Several years ago I read the huge King novel, all of his novels are huge, called Insomnia. At that time, I didn’t have insomnia, and I think part of that was I was reading that book and sometimes I have found King, in his huge novels, to get ponderous, but I ramble …
While 4:30 isn’t early for a huge section of the population, this morning I have tossed and turned in the bed for about an hour or so before getting up and typing on my laptop. I always tell myself not to give into the insomnia but to think about the dream I had before I woke up at an ungodly hour and somehow that will lead me back to sleep. It does work at times, but this morning it was my dream that woke me up.
This is going to get really boring, so this is a warning. I am going to tell you about a dream. I always think my dreams are real interesting – I dream in color which I really enjoy — and unfortunately, for My Long Suffering Wife Ruth, she has heard about 44,323 dream stories in the 15+ years we have been married. Ruth has how long we have been married down to the seconds. I believe, and I tell myself that is because she is really enjoying being married to me, but it might be one of those things where I kind of delude myself.
That is because in the midst of telling Ruth about an interesting dream, I can see her concentration waver, and I think she is probably thinking about grocery lists or her newest sewing project and what we have to go to Joann’s to get for that project or something like that, but she is not thinking about the dream I am telling her about.
Let me digress from my digression here: While I was in bed, I thought about this column, which is what I usually do when I have a column or lately an editorial about the Brookville Town Council … can’t get started on that or I really will lose control … I think about a column or editorial in bed and then get up and type it before I forget, but this time I was thinking the column was going to be about my telephone conversations with Holiday Inn.
But I seem to be getting away from that. Maybe, I will come back to that before I stop typing.
My dream, at the end, was about going to CVS. The CVS was in Richmond, and it was not a real CVS in Richmond I have ever been at, but it was a CVS in Richmond. In the midst of walking along a walking path from the parking lot, which was a long way away from the CVS’ front door, people around me were talking.
Really, I should say at this point, when I pulled into the parking lot it was a very cool night and people were dancing. That was strange, not the dancing part, but that people were there because it was a large parking lot, and I had pulled next to the only other car that was there, and it was an ugly green 57 Ford, all rusted out and looking like it had been parked there since 1957.
The reason I had to park in the parking lot was most people had parked along the street in front of the CVS, but I don’t parallel park, even in my dreams. There were several cars parked in the handicap spaces of the parking lot, which was a long way from where I parked but still a long way from the CVS, which now that I think about it that is strange because as I said earlier, the parking lot was a long way from the CVS, and I had to traverse the distance along a walking path that was very uneven. I was actually hopping from rock to rock, so I apparently had not had the Events I Can No Longer Talk about But Always Do. Because, the EICNLTBAD left me, in reality, where I cannot walk a straight line because my balance is so bad, but I walk like Monk in the TV show, and I cannot on my best days hop from one rock to another.
Many, many people in the world today are too young to remember Monk, but I am guessing many readers do remember it.
Anyway, there were several people around me that I could not see conversing as we were all walking to the front door. I could only see one young male person, and I was trying to match his hops from rock to rock.
They were all talking about how the really good CVS parking lot dancing party was happening at New Point. I know New Point does not have a CVS, and New Point is a long way from Richmond, but it was what it was. While they were having that conversation, I was thinking whether I should pull my mask up over my face before I got to the CVS front door. The male in front of me did not have a mask at all. Through this whole COVID thing I have been confused about everything, but especially now my confusion centers around wearing masks, especially at CVS because if you stand around and read their signs as I do when Ruth is doing things around the cash register and everyone is waiting for the receipts to print – about 10 minutes per receipt I am guessing – I read their signs. How I interpret the signs about masks is masks are once again mandatory, but no one seems to be wearing masks, so I am torn.
I wear masks for my employment – I don’t like wearing masks – but I do when I am supposed to. Some people are back to wearing masks all the time, and I have spotted several people wearing masks alone in vehicles again. I watch them from my front porch and feel sorry for them, but the other day I forgot I had my mask on from work, and I was driving to the real Brookville CVS with my mask on, so I was one of those.
Anyway, I was walking to the CVS, in my dream, surrounded by young people who made a habit of partying and dancing at CVSes around the area, when a jet went overhead at a very low altitude. Now the jet was in an earlier dream. It would take off near us, fly over Ruth and my house very low and then point the nose straight up and go into a stall. I had the feeling these were training missions and that was what they were training about coming out of a stall, but they were really close to the ground, and I was really worried they would crash before they could get their engine restarted, but they did get it restarted over and over again without crashing.
And unbelievably that sort of leads me to my conversations with Holiday Inn.
Remember about a year ago I wrote a column where Ruth and I could not find the Atlantic Ocean? Really, I should leave Ruth out of this because I believe she could have found the Atlantic Ocean, and I would have too if I had listened to her.
But instead I went into a Lowes located in Virginia Beach, which most of the city is nowhere near the beach or the Atlantic Ocean, and I took very complicated directions from a tattooed Lowes employee named Brian. While Ruth and those directions did get us to the ocean, when I was listening to Brian, very, very loud Navy jets went over the Lowes at a low altitude and I visibly reacted by ducking and trying to pull my head into my shoulders. After I visibly ducked and tried to pull my head into my shoulders, I realized I was the only person to react, and Brian — noticing my reaction — did say residents get used to the jets.
So my jet in the dream was a combination of those jets and the A-10 warthogs that periodically go low over our house on the way to do a practice bombing run on the Brookville Dam.
Again, this gets me to my conversation with Holiday Inn, because the way we found the Atlantic was from a Holiday Inn parking lot that I had gone into sideways because I just floored it from the last highway we – I had been lost on – across several lanes of traffic to that hotel. We were very tired and for some reason Ruth had been losing her patience with me for about the last 14 years prior to that moment.
Anyway, our destination that day or night as it was then because we – I — had become lost at Newport News – please avoid Newport News at any cost especially at rush hour, just sayin – was the Outer Banks.
So, once we had eaten inside the hotel’s restaurant, which had very recently reopened in what we thought at that time was the Post-COVID world, oh my, the confusion again, I called Holiday Inn to reserve something at the Outer Banks for the next few days.
In my conversation with a nice, young man representing Holiday Inn, at least he said he was but one never knows over the telephone, he sold me on a free trip to a Gatlinburg Holiday Inn Resort, or so I thought. It’s supposed to be free and all Ruth and I have to do is sit through a two-hour sales pitch – torture — on timeshares, and we only have to pay the taxes for our stay.
Wrapped around those tortuous two hours is supposed to be four days and three nights of a relatively free vacation for four people in the resort – just pay taxes, or so I thought. When the nice, young man sold me on that, he said I had one year to visit the resort, or so I thought.
Unfortunately, for me, as it now stands, an email recently reminded me of the ticking clock regarding this free vacation so I once again called Holiday Inn. That time I got a nice woman. She informed me I was mistaken about the free vacation, where we only have to pay taxes, being at the resort. I thought she said the free vacation where we only have to pay taxes would be at any Holiday Inn. Ruth and I decided before my second confused conversation the other two people would be two daughters who like to travel and can get off work rather easily. Thus, I informed them about the change in plans, and we all decided on a Holiday Inn at Franklin, Tennessee. I would go to the battlefields around Franklin, and they would shop. I even downloaded an ebook for my Kindle about the Battle of Franklin so I would have an idea what I would be looking at during my walk around the battlefield(s). Don’t tell Ruth but the ebook cost $13.99 so add that onto the taxes for the free vacation.
After talking to the nice woman at Holiday Inn, I had hung up so we all could Message with everybody and figure out what days and nights to have our free vacation where we only have to pay for the taxes. So, we did, and I called Holiday Inn back a few days later.
I talked to a different nice woman. She said I had been mistaken. We would be staying at either the Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg Holiday Inn and go to the Holiday Inn Resort in Gatlinburg for our two-hour torture.
When I got off the phone with her, I Messaged Angie and Samantha and told them we would not be going to Franklin, but we would be going to somewhere in the Smokies, I really have no idea where. They were OK with that; they are accustomed to dealing with me, and they don’t have to do it all the time like Ruth has to.
However, the last nice woman said I would get a confirmation email within two weeks giving me the details for the vacation. I have not received it. So, when I woke up from the dream about dancing people in the CVS parking lot and the jets, I thought if I am going to get up, I might as well call Holiday Inn once again and talk to another nice person.
That is what I am going to do next, right after my second cup of coffee. Coffee is my current addiction; Ruth will not let me access Amazon anymore because we have boxes of different types of flavored coffee K-cups open and all over the house. And coffee might be one of the reasons for my insomnia, but I will just delude myself that it is not one of the reasons and go get my second cup.
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