I’m buying a pack of Marlboro Reds on the street. I pay my $6 and the guy gives me a different pack. It too has a red design on it, but it’s not the same logo. I’m also wondering why I got the small pack when I used to smoke the 120s. I tell the guy I want my money back. He says that’s all the cigarettes he has, no Marlboros, and he won’t give me my money back. I think it’s inferior brand and am not happy.
Suddenly I’m not on the street any more but at a counter in a grocery-store type of setting. And who’s standing right next to me up at the register but Shawn. ShawnP She’s looking at me with disgust for having bought that pack of cigarettes. I think “Just my luck to have someone from EX right there as I’m buying cigarettes!” And I’m thinking how can I possible get out of this???? I can’t exactly pretend I didn’t buy them because they’re right there in my purse plain as day. I try to come up with some plausible explanation, and all I can think of it that I just wanted to try ONE. But I know she won’t believe that because I’m not that stupid. (Actually I think I was probably smoking for a while before I bought that pack.) Eventually I just say “I haven’t SMOKED ANY!” And then I blew my breath in her face to prove it.
She could barely look me in the eye so disgusted she was. She said, “You know you really shouldn’t be seeing (hanging out with) those guys in the office. It’s not appropriate.”
Cut to—
I’m in a hall with many white doors in a row. I hope I’m opening my own door to my own room with my key in this boarding house, or whatever it was. It’s just about big enough for a bed. I’m getting ready to go out with all my fellow EXers. We’re going to hike up to Machu Picchu. I’m not quite sure what to wear, though, as the temperature might be different up there. First I put on a long sleeved blouse, then change my mind and put on a short sleeved blouse with a pocket over the left breast and have on very tight jeans.
Cut to –
I’ve walked into an eatery, small NY deli type. The guy offers me a meat sandwich, it’s like the last one he has left- Falafel, maybe? I thought he was going to give it to me for free but then says it’s $6. Since I spent that on the cigarettes I couldn’t afford to buy the sandwich, which I wasn’t that keen on anyway.
Cut to -
I’m in a large building, sort of like Madison Square Garden. There are two guys who are about to hit on me. Large amount of people around. I think I’ll probably be able to hide myself in the crowd. A fight breaks out somewhere off to my right. I manage to exit the building on the left side and am on the street but don’t know WHERE, on what street. And I can’t find my EXers. Suddenly the cell phone in my rear right pant’s pocket rings. I had forgotten that I had brought it. The pants are very tight. I finally manage to extricate it and there’s Rick’s Rick_M face on the screen taking up the whole screen. I say “Hello?” But he can’t hear me. He says “Press 9,” and I’m trying to figure out how to get the numbers on the screen so I can press 9. Someone else’s face appears full on the screen. I’m desperately trying to get them to hear me. Then I see a picture of an open car door with two people in the back seat (fellow EXers) and it’s obvious that they’re all waiting for me.
And suddenly it all makes sense. We’re going to DRIVE to Machu Picchu, of course, because the sun was going to be down in a short period of time and we’d never be able to hike up there before dark. But they can’t hear me. And I’ve got this pack of cigarettes in my other hand and where will I be able to hide them, since I didn’t bring a purse? I figure I’ll just have to put them in my breast pocket.
I know they’re not going to keep waiting much longer for me to show up and I don’t remember where we said we’d meet. And I don’t know what street I’m on to tell them where I am because I can't read the street sign.
And that’s when ..... I woke up.
