Hiding out

I was on a tour/ride in a big old mansion, but I wasn't paying much attention, and instead was busy texting.  Someone said something to me about it, and I said, "But I've seen this movie before." Somehow I knew what was about to happen -- that the "tour" people were going to give us some hallucinogenic substance and pull some crazy shit to freak everyone out.  So when an emergency siren went off and snakes started crawling all over the floors, I very quietly stuck down to the basement where there was an apartment, locked the door, grabbed a crank-powered flashlight radio and a plate of food, and crawled into a cubbyhole I had built into a closet.  I also left a note for Redneckhunter (who I had left upstairs on the tour) in case something went wrong and I died in the closet.

So I was happily eating my plate of beef stew, in the closet, when I heard voices and footsteps coming down to the apartment.  So I crawled completely into the closet - behind the hanging clothes and under a big black blanket.  It was my friend Joyce and some men, and they apparently were the bad guy masterminds behind the whole thing.  I must have made a noise or something because Joyce decided to look in the closet.  I tried to hide completely under the blanket, wrapping it tightly around me.  She was literally poking the blanket, and trying to pull it up.  I was amazed she didn't find me, but at some point she gave up, and they all went back upstairs.

After things calmed down upstairs and Redneckhunter came back down.  I jumped out and gave him a big hug.

My OCD comes out

I was masquerading as a teenager, hanging out with a bunch of kids who were trying to start a band. We got invited over to play for this older (40-something) Indian guy. But I was found out - a girl asked me, how old are you? When I told her to guess, she said 25, and I said, you got me (when really I'm close to 40...). Anyway, as the rest of the band was chatting with the Indian guy, I noticed how filthy the keys of the keyboard were, and I started wiping them with a Wetnap. The Indian guy called me out again, but I just had to keep cleaning it. While I was cleaning, they actually started playing music, so I was left out, but I was very happy when the keyboard was finally clean.

Water ride NYC

I was driving in with a couple people into New York City, and I decided to ditch them for the train at the last minute before going into the tunnel, so that I could go on this underground water ride. From the subway, you could ride on an innertube over rapids, while people tickled your feet and butt from below. It was a little odd having strangers touch you, but I was assured that all the volunteer ticklers had a strict ethos of non-groping -- it was a community and everyone looked out for everyone else. At the end of the ride, you exited out into a nice cafe with free snacks and beverages and mingling.

Bizarre Foods

I was with Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods and we were in a boat in China helping our hosts pull up thousand-year-old eggs that had been made not by being buried in lye, but instead had been preserved underwater in a river.

My mom passed by somehow and asked what it was, and was surprised when Andrew Zimmern told her pi-dan (Chinese for preserved egg) because she had never seen them made this way underwater. I told him he should be proud to be eating something my mom had never even heard of.

Speechless with Tom Waits

Redneckhunter and I were at a funeral/parade out on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Then we head to lunch with some other funeral-goers. As we sat down at our table, I noticed Tom Waits sitting at the table across from us! Turns out our friends the Worthingtons knew him and introduced him. While I, the superfan, was just dumbstruck and couldn't think of anything to say to him, Redneckhunter was just chatting up a storm with Tom about some spot on the California coast that they both liked.

Underdressed and underwater

I had to attend a dedication ceremony for a dormitory at Princeton, and I looked down and realized I was wearing jeans with holes in them, and I needed to go home to change. It was a long walk home, and I was running late.

Then I found myself having to do a reality-tv-style challenge that involved wading into the ocean. Some of the other challengers chose to wear flotation devices, but I figured the water was cold and I'd probably last longer keeping myself warm by treading water. However, as I waded in, the water didn't get any deeper than a few inches. There wasn't enough water to properly do the challenge, the judges thought, so they decided to move the challenge to a pool. Since it didn't seem to be as fair or interesting in a swimming pool, they decided to change the challenge to having us choreograph an underwater dance routine in the pool.

Arab Chinatown

I woke up on a tour bus traveling through what seemed to be a Chinatown in a Muslim country (Egypt perhaps?). Signs were in Chinese and Arabic. I realized I was on a Princeton trip, and I still had work I needed to do. Someone wanted me to make an animated e-card with ET flying past the moon.

Then I was no longer with the tour, but instead with just my family in a van. My uncle was driving the van, and my cousin was navigating with help from the GPS. Looking out the window I saw someone dressed in a military uniform (in China, military surplus is quite popular attire) taking a dump on the sidewalk. When we got to our hotel, I decided to change out of the flimsy ballet flats I was wearing into more substantial shoes.