Cougar town

You know those dreams where something bad happens, and it's not necessarily a nightmare, I mean, it's not scary, but something bad has definitely, irrevocably happened and then you wake up and are SO relieved to find out it didn't really happen and you can go back to your normal life?  It can be anything, big or small; I mean, I've done it all from the dreaming I woke up late (and then waking up a thousand times to see that I have not, in fact, yet slept through the alarm) and, especially in the first year or two after I quit smoking, dreaming that I'd had a cigarette, to big-time life acts like dreaming I had a baby, cheated on a partner, or even killed someone (not that those three things are equal degrees of malice...)  Seriously, I've totally had the killed someone dream a few times; usually it's like I hit them while driving or something because apparently even the most deeply disturbed parts of my subconscious don't see me as the murdering type... Actually, I do realize these things are symbolic, and that just like with the Oops-I'm-taking-this-class-I-didn't-go-to-all-semester dreams they are about wasting life or "killing" it in other ways than the literal. Anyhoo, so, you know those dreams?

Well, last night was a new one on me. I dreamed  I went back and took some classes from BYU. Now, here's a little-known fun fact about me: I actually did go  to BYU, back in the day. I know, what? It's another lifetime, what can I say. First of all, I attended a five-week-long high-school summer theatre workshop there for four teenage summers in a row, and then I headed there as a bona-fide college freshman on a lovely scholarship. Good times, good dorm friends, a fabulous English department, languages up the wazoo, ski class, lots of psychotic behavioral control issues, and the well-that-certainly-had-the-opposite-effect final pushing me away from religion (which, to be fair, was sure to happen eventually anyway). What fun! This was all like so long ago now, though, that I have now had more life AFTER BYU than before it. How about that?! But anyway, back at age 18 I saw the error of my ways and transferred out of there, but not before firing off angry letters to the deans, presidents, and board of trustees promising to never again let another penny of mine go to that school. 

How would I spend another penny on BYU, you ask? Well, it was actually quite possible, because I continued to spend time in Utah regularly, mainly due to family connections. But I felt so strongly about this not-another-penny resolve that I stuck to it even in desperate situations. FOR example, one of the many times I flew into Salt Lake City and headed to Payson, Utah, to see my grandfather, I opted not to rent a car but instead took the SLC Airport Express bus to Provo, which lies between Salt Lake and Payson, where I then transferred to the Provo-Payson bus that would drop me off just a hop, skip, and jump from Grandpa's ol' homestead. Naturally, where does this Provo bus transfer take place? At the BYU Wilkinson Center on-campus bus transfer hub, which most of the Provo-bound and intra-Provo-Orem bus routes hit up. Now, I had a bit of time to kill in between buses (because I'm sure the Provo-Payson bus frequency was like once every hour or two, if that), and so I'm right there, you know, at the Wilk (as the Kidz always call it) and not only was I in the usual I've-just-been-on-a-plane-and-then-a-bus hunger/thirst mode but I discovered that they had added a Jamba Juice! A JAMBA JUICE! There had not been a Jamba Juice on campus when I attended there. I really wanted Jamba Juice. There was certainly not a Jamba Juice in Payson, and what with me not having a rental car on this trip I was going to be a prisoner of the Payson homestead, unable to even hop over into Spanish Fork on  a whim, beholden to the needs and wants of my decidedly non-coffee-drinking family members, not pursuing my daily franchised happiness of my own accord, basically. These thoughts made Jamba Juice even more appealing than it normally was (which is: very), but I couldn't do it. because this branch was on the BYU campus, paying rent or whatever to BYU, and probably the campus gets some sort of profit, I thought?  I didn't (don't) really know how it works with these on-campus Sbarros and Subways and other fast food franchises, but I just knew that despite my longing for some Jamba, I couldn't let a penny of mine pass into BYU coffers, and so I abstained. Such resolve! Choose the right, eh?

And then last night, I dreamed I was taking classes from BYU...some kind of independent study/in-person collaboration...I can't recall all the hazy dream details or why I was taking them, but what was notable, even in my dream, was after the classes were going or I was preparing for the exams or whatever, I realized with full punch-to-the-gut horror that Ooops!!! Oh no!!! I had given hundreds of my dollars to BYU to take these classes!  And I wasn't supposed to ever do that or give money to BYU ever again! Oh no! Regret washed over me...how could I undo this mistake?! 

And then I woke up to realize it wasn't true, that I was safe, that I have not in fact accidentally spent a few hundred bucks (?!) on a BYU class, that my boycott still stands. Ahhh, sweet relief. 

Well, Freudians, anyone want to venture a guess about what it all means?