i dream of popsicles

we all have work dreams, right? Normally they follow the standard crazy busy/everything's going wrong/angry customers theme. A former co-worker once told me she had a dream that she was working at her current restaurant as well as a Waffle House up the road--at the same time. She kept having to run up and down the street to wait on her section in both restaurants. Personally, having dreams like that makes me feel more tired than i was before i went to bed.

friday afternoon i had this dream: it was winter and yet i had two tables inside and three out on the patio. Understandably i was pissed. There was a small snow drift alongside the railing surrounding the patio and it was windy. "So basically i just have a two table section!" i bitched to someone. Well lo and behold four people entered the restaurant and made a bee line for the patio, seating themselves at a table out there. They were all bundled up in coats and i could see them through the window doing the classic "craning their necks looking for a server" self seater routine. I took them menus. The two men at the table ordered normal shit on the menu, a country fried steak and a grilled chicken dinner. The women however went a different route.

"what type of popsicles do you have available?" I admit that i'm not sure but i'll go find out. I went back inside and headed to the kitchen. We have a big pie case by the salad station (we regularly have twelve plus pies available on any given day) but in the dream there was a large standing freezer in it's place. I opened it and it was full of popsicle boxes. Just like it would be in real life it was in total disarray, some of the boxes were totally empty, others were mis-labeled, a few boxes just had a lone empty wrapper in it, and i had to root around in there to see what we actually had. I scribbled all the varieties on a cocktail napkin and went back outside to recite them. One woman ordered a blue popsicle called Aquarium and the other ordered a red one called Red Ignition.

so then i'm running the food. I'm walking through the dining room with two plates on one arm and two unwrapped popsicles in the opposite hand. I drop the Aquarium popsicle. I cuss while picking it up off the floor and i take it back to the kitchen. I rinse it off in the sink, kinda shake the water droplets off it, and notice that now it looks shorter than the red one. "Maybe they won't notice" i tell myself, and i run the food.