Dream

I'm waking up from a dream. I was at my parents house, although it wasn't really their house. They owned it, but it wasn't where they live now or anyplace they've ever lived. It reminded me more of the house I rented in '92-'93 with Matt, Dana & Rob. In any case, I was walking through the kitchen and I noticed my mother was having problems with the dishwasher. The door wouldn't stay shut properly, and so the machine kept turning itself off. I looked at the latch and noticed it was tweaked, so I thought I could just bend it back the other way a bit and ... SNAP. The plastic thing broke clean off in my hand. Hmmm...

Mind you, in real life, I am a clothes washer and dryer salesman by trade. That should qualify me to fix the darn D/W, right? At least in my own mind it does. In the dream, I inspect the latch and see two extremely tiny holes which seemingly could be used to screw the latch to the frame. The screws may have popped out onto the kitchen floor somewhere, but a search of the linoleum reveals nothing. I did however, come up with a few random screws of various sizes that I pulled out of the bottom of my tool box. Actually, I didn't see my tool box in the dream, they were suddenly just there. At this point, my Dad walks into the kitchen. I explain what's going on, and he says, "well, you'll have to come down to the basement to order the parts you'll need." Still convinced I can jerry-rig the thing, I resist this suggestion and proceed to try to make these odd shape screws fit the task at hand, I'm doing my best to get these other screws into these holes, but it eventually dawns on me that he was right. The only screws that'll fit are the ones specific to this Bosch dishwasher.
At least I know in my mind that I won't have to venture into my Father's lair to get what I need. I have a laptop with a wireless Internet connection! I can go to partsdirect.com and get the parts I need just by knowing the model number of the machine. I'm much pleased with myself - momentarily. Two other fears crash down upon me. First, without an operative latch, there's going to be no way to open the dishwasher, and so all the dishes that are in there now will be inaccessible, thus I'm depriving my family from important tableware. Secondly, I think to myself that I may have stripped the inside threads of these screwholes, ruining them. Its about here that I wake up...

What does this dream mean? The dishwasher is obviously my relationship to work. I know what to do, but that doesn't prevent me from messing it up. The dishes are my future family. I can't get at them because I don't make enough money. The screws show that I always try to do things my way, and can be quite stubborn about it. Fine when it works, but sometimes disastrous when things go wrong. My relationship with my father in the dream is very much like my relationship with my father in real life. Something I'll go into more later.

Gil