Things That Only Happen To Old People

This morning my wife had a doctor’s appointment downtown. I set my alarm with the intention of leaving an hour before the appointment. When I got up, I checked Google Maps on my phone, and it said it would take an hour and a half to get to the doctor. Figuring traffic was unusually bad, we left an additional half hour early.

We noticed pretty quickly that traffic wasn’t particularly bad. For every ten minutes we drove, we got twenty minutes closer according to the app. When we were about halfway there, the app started having us turn onto back roads. Some of these weren’t even roads, but more like alleys and parking lots. The app showed our route as a stairstep pattern, going from alley to alley to get to our destination. At one point it had us go through a road with a “No Access” sign.

Eventually we realized that this couldn’t possibly be right, so we stopped so I could figure out the problem. It turned out the app was set to “bicycle” instead of “car.” I don’t know how that happened, I’ve never used the bicycle setting, I don’t even own a bike. My finger must have brushed it or something.

Anyway, long story short, we got to the doctor 45 minutes early.

Dreams: Robocop 4

I dreamed they had just released Robocop 4 in the theaters. (Is there already a Robocop 4? I have no idea.) R4 had a different tone than the rest of the series. His partner this time was played by Sarah Michelle Gellar (my wife and I are currently rewatching Buffy), and it had a comedic "buddy cop" feel like the Lethal Weapon movies.

However, Dan O'Herlihy, who played the CEO in the original Robocop, was angry that he hadn't been cast in R4. (Note, in real life, this actor died in 2005.) O'Herlihy started killing off the rest of the cast.

I was Gellar in the dream, though I was probably closer to Buffy, and I was investigating the murders. I explored a movie theater where Robocop 4 was playing. The theater complex had a river running through it, and customers had to take gondolas to reach the different theaters. 

O'Herlihy, which is difficult to type, fled the scene of the crime in a gondola. He had the rest of the board members from Robocop in a gondola with him. I tried to follow by walking in the waist-deep water, but then he poured something in the water that made it acidic. So I had to climb up to a short ledge that lined the flooded hallways.

I still managed to keep up for a while, but there were gaps in the ledge which slowed me down. Then one of the board members (played by Ralph Bellamy in the dream, though he wasn't in Robocop IRL) betrayed O'Herlihy and somehow helped me get a boat of my own. The details get a little blurry at that point, but Bellamy and I did manage to capture O'Herlihy and bring him to justice.

Now Available: Geek Cutes

My latest book is now available on Amazon and Other E-Retailers. Only 99 cents!

Geek Cutes is a collection of eight light-hearted short stories, spanning a variety of genres, with a focus on lesbians (both cis and trans).

Stories included in this anthology:

Dungeon Therapy: Two women meet over an online tabletop RPG.

Gilded Cage: A young tech expert is locked in her room by her homophobic parents.

Mother's Day: A cop teams up with an occult expert to track down an otherworldly monster.

Fairy Dust: In a war between fairies and dragons, one pixie must embrace her destiny.

Hero Worship: A woman goes on a blind date with a superhero, but is it safer to stay single?

Think Tank: A team of scholars struggle to break a divine code, racing against the most serious of all deadlines.

Strangers in the Void: When the power goes out on a space station, two strangers work together to find the cause.

Vigilante: In a neighborhood riddled with violent crime, a masked hero protects women from the local gangs.