I was having a dream last night.

It was a dream I remembered when I woke up.  It was a dream I remembered when I woke up relieved.

In my dream, I was delivering the mail.  I was delivering out of my 1981 Corolla Station Wagon, so I knew in my head…even in my dream…that something was different.

I haven’t driven that car on the route for a while…not since I blew the head gasket trying to go too fast up the Saluda Grade to get a package to the District Manager on time.

In my dream I was having a pretty good time.  I was up in Asheville for some reason…fully loaded for a day of delivering but way outside my delivery zone…when I heard what I thought was Gary Clark Jr. playing some blues at a big street festival.

The guy had the red guitar, wore his hat the same way..he was playing the blues pretty well…surely, it had to be Gary Clark, Jr.

So I parked the mail and left my car and got out to enjoy the music.

This is a big no-no.

When you deliver the mail, you are tethered to your vehicle.  You lock and secure…you don’t leave to go listen to Gary Clark….Jr.

You don’t chase butterflies when you deliver the mail.

You have to stay focused.

But, in my dreams…I leave to listen to “the blues”.

Anyway, I was grooving to this music and enjoying the sunshine when I took a closer look.

“Hey…wait a second.  This isn’t Gary Clark….Jr. …..this is Shambone and the Ruffintown…what the heck?!!!”

It was at that moment that the full responsibility of my commitment to the USPS kicked in…and I looked for a fig leaf to cover myself.

“I’ve got to get back to the car!!!”

So I wandered back to the place I’d left the vehicle…right in front of an illegal chop shop and catty-corner to the crack house….AND MY CAR WAS GONE.

MY CAR WAS GONE.  THE MAIL WAS GONE.  MY LIFE WOULD NEVER BE THE SAME.

I was frantic….running down the street, around all the corners I came to…looking, looking, looking….LOOKING HARD.

MY CAR…AND THE MAIL….WAS GONE.

In my dream, I must have run for at least half an hour.  I was nervous about this “losing the mail” situation.

“Why’d I ever stop to listen to that faux Gary Clark….Jr. ?!!!  I’m ruined.”

I couldn’t figure out how to get out of losing all this mail.

I felt like Pinocchio on his second day at Pleasure Island.

And then I remembered…in the midst of the mildest bad dream I’ve had in a while…I remembered that I could WAKE UP.

What do they call that?  Cognizant Dreaming?  Lucid Dreaming?  I don’t really know…but I remembered that I could wake up and the part that could be so damaging if it happened in real life would just go away.

So I woke up and it was all over and I knew that I had another chance at another perfect day of bringing the mail to the people correctly.

My string of perfect days was unbroken….it was only a dream after all.

But, while my dream lasted, it was a lot of fun to be standing in the crowd listening to some really good cover band play the blues.

I guess that’s why they make repercussions as painful as possible.  We’d all be chasing butterflies if the payback for enjoying ourselves wasn’t so damaging.

Dreams are pretty strange.  I’m glad I could wake up from this one…no matter how much fun it was at the beginning.