Odd Transformations 28: The televised reunion

I don't think any of my recent dreams have had this much backstory.

A few years ago, I guess I starred in a reality TV show. It was a moderate success, since a lot of us went back to our old lives afterwards, but the reunion that was being prepared for us was making quite a splash in the entertainment industry. It was going to be BIG!

First of all, I was invited to a fancy dinner. Outside the convention centre where the dinner was taking place, I ran into my first friend who was a part of the reality show along with me, a nice enough guy who went on to become an RCMP officer, since he was wearing his uniform. We caught up outside the centre, and when the bus that was going to take the cast out somewhere else was leaving, he told me to go with him in his car.

The second phase of the reunion was getting us into a pool. I was all for this, and used the alcove of this meeting room to change down to my swim trunks. I remember I was wearing two pairs of socks for some reason.

In a room adjoining the alcove, where was some sort of preparation going on. It was a bunch of people from a high school in Ardrossan.

"Oh, Ardrossan!" I said. "Is there a girl named Kerry there?"

They call for Kerry, who turns out to be not my cousin, but a lather large girl who really intimidates me.

"Oh hell," I mutter. "Did I say Ardrossan? My cousin Kerry was in Wetaskiwin. My mistake."

I tried to go to the pool with my reality show co-stars, but this huge Kerry said, "Look at your hands! They're smaller than mine!"

So she forcibly grabbed my hand and showed how small it was to hers. I gulped. Then she insisted we compare feet. Mine were bigger than hers (whose feet AREN'T mine bigger than?), and I was able to get off the hook after a girl from the show came in to wonder where I was.

In this room we went into was the reunion party. It seemed to be a mix of people from a lot of my paths in life along with people that don't exist in the non-dream world. (That is to say, when I saw them, I completely remembered them from points in my life that never happened, but my dream-self had context.)

I saw Shauna (my first crush from high school), Debates, some people from Lister. One bigger German guy who I'm pretty sure was gay came up to me and embraced me, saying how much he missed me. Shauna made some sort of remark, which made me mock-glare at her, pointing at her and miming "I'll kill you!" This made people laugh, especially when I'd look back at the gay German adoringly, only to glare again at Shauna, still miming threats.

The part at which I woke up finished with a surprise cameo from Canton, who looked to be about forty, until I realized that he had dyed his hair grey and given himself stage makeup wrinkles for effect.

"You looked a lot younger, Canton, when I last saw you...THIS AFTERNOON!"

* * *

Last night, Canton, Dev and I went to play some Deadlands RPG, a very dark magic-infested Wild West setting.

My character, Barney Bailum (Think on that. You'll figure it out...) is a snake oil salesman, a man famous for the fast talk, and even more famous for his sheer greed. Canton plays my twelve-year-old son, Petey.

We were in a town where some friends of ours ran into some demons who blew up some churches and blamed them for it. So this session was all about getting our reputation back and foiling some baddies.

Dev and I made this plan up where we'd have an outdoor church service, since the main church was now uninhabitable. Dev, who's character is an Anglican priest, and I would bring all the townsfolk together so we can see which one is possessed by the demon, and we can exorcise it and maintain our good name.

Dev's mentor was an old bishop that you just didn't want to mess with. And when it came time for our service, where we had a donation offering to build a new church, the bishop had warned me specifically that all the money went to the church.

Dev started off by bringing the mayor up on stage, who had the demon on his back. He started off by hoodwinking the mayor into giving a lot of money to rebuild the church. I was acting as the deacon, and when six hundred dollars was placed into my hat, Dev said, "You've made this town very happy, mayor."

I decided my character would be stuck to his promise to the bishop, and could only watch, horrified, as people put loads of money into his hat that he could not touch. Barney started bawling. "Yes, Mayor, you've made the church (sob sob) very happy." Single tears ran down my cheeks.

The room was laughing its collective ass off, to the sight of the greediest man in our game having no choice but to not touch the over fourteen hundred dollars in his hat, and still playing the part of the deacon to Dev's minister.

"Boo hoo! I'm so, so HAPPY. Boo hoo hoo hooo..."