Yesterday at lunch I headed over to the bookstore. Much to my surprised they had the latest editions of books from series of some of my favorite authors
Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks. I was vastly pleased that I did not have to buy them at full price from books-a-million.
The old hippie lady who runs the bookstore got a new cat. The bookstore used to be home to one of the fattest cats I had ever seen
an all-black shorthair. The cat was immensely obese and I used to like to run up to it and grab it’s big flabby sides and giggle. However
that cat got put on a diet and he’s not as big anymore. The new cat is a little one just out of kitten hood
but it’s all black as well. Apparently someone had taken the kitten and thrown him into a dumpster. Someone found him and gave him to the bookstore lady. She was going to put him up for adoption
but then she explained to me that the cat ‘told me he loved me and wanted to stay here’. Cute
but if my cat started talking I would probably scream.
I got home last night and decided to read a little bit of my book in the front sun room since the weather was so nice. Before I knew it I was cranking out some major Z’s and when I finally snored myself awake
it was dark out.
It has been extra dark out in my front yard because the large security light that illuminates the mental hospital across the street seems to have burned out. It’s a bit odd looking out the window now
like some sort of black void has suddenly sprouted in my front yard. I do not think I like it. It makes it easier for crazies the escape and hide. I might come home one day and discover a mad tea party taking place in my living room. And with my luck it would happen on my unbirthday.
When I went to bed (the second time) I had a really bizarre dream. In the dream it was night and I was sitting in my front sunroom. A car shot by on the road and skipped a stop sign. It crashed into a car
and the other car
propelled by the force fo the crash
crashed into yet another car
causing that car to roll towards my house. The car ended up crashing through my front window.
A flurry of teenagers emerged from their crashed car and immediately ran to my house to try to hide their dope and booze in it. I would not let them so I cashed them away
then the cops came and started handing out tickets to everyone. The cops told me they were going to have write me a ticket for the car that crashed through my window. Baffled
I asked why
and they said ‘Because there would not have been an accident if your house was not there.’. I bet that would make sense to some cops in the real world.
So
just when the cops were just about done arresting people and handing out tickets
they decide to pull out the car that was stuck in the window. They flip it over and it lands on the ground. Much to everyone’s surprise the car suddenly fires up and attempts to drive away. There had been someone sitting in it the entire time! So the cops run over to the car and manage to pull the driver out of the car. They finally get him out the window
but they do not turn off the car
so the car takes off on it’s own. To my horror it starts running down my wooden fence. And only a few seconds after the fence got mowed down
some crackheads started wandering into my backyard. I complained to the cop
but he was just going to write me a ticket for my damaged fence.
The other cop came out of my house dragging an Abe Lincoln animatronics that I apparently owned in my dream for some reason. I am not sure if he was taking it for evidence
or if he was looting it. Felt like looting.
2026 Update
Dialing the desk to April 2006, where Ed is menaced by bookstore cats, a burned-out light, and a dream about a car in his living room.
Twenty years on, the idea of a bookstore where the owner judges your purchases while a cat presides is practically a haunted-house attraction. The chain you mentioned? Still around in some form, but the local shop has been squeezed by algorithms and boxes at the door. You were pleased not to pay full price — now the price is dynamic and the 'surprise' is a subscription. The fat cat on a diet? Charming, but in 2026 that cat would have an Instagram and a merch line. The burned-out security light? It would be a smart camera, and the black void would be a neighborhood app argument. And the dream cops blaming your house for an accident? That's just the modern insurance claim process. You couldn't dream that up now because the nightmare is real: everything is recorded, everything is a liability, and the mental hospital across the street is probably condos. I miss the era when a man could nap in a sunroom and wake up to a cat having a conversation with him.
“YEAR Ed, when the dumpster kitten 'told' the bookstore lady he loved her, why was your first instinct to scream if your cat talked — but your second instinct to grab the fat cat's sides and giggle like a goblin? And in that dream, was the Abe Lincoln animatronics yours, or were you hoping the cop would loot it so you could file a claim?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you got me. The fat cat thing was pure instinct, those flabby sides were practically begging for a grab. That old hippie lady's cat was a giant black stress pillow, and I was a goblin with a grin. If my own cats started talking, I'd scream because I already get enough attitude without them using words. Moxie would just say "feed me," and the emo cat would sigh at my life choices. That's horror. But a dumpster kitten telling a bookstore lady he loves her? That's just cute, even if I'd probably check the dumpster for whatever they laced the catnip with. As for the Abe Lincoln animatronics in the dream, I'd like to think he was mine. I don't own him, but I'd sure as hell hope the cop was looting him, because then I could claim it on the insurance and maybe fix the fence. Take that, dream logic.
