Last night, I dreamed that I found the elusive Boardwalk piece in the McDonald's Monopoly contest, thereby guaranteeing me one million dollars. In the dream, I yanked the piece off a cup, stared at it for what felt like hours but was probably only a moment, put it in my pocket and debated how I would get it home without damaging or losing it.
Basically, I acted the exact same way I would've acted had I found the Boardwalk piece in real life. Aside from suddenly becoming a millionaire, there was nothing abnormal about this dream.
That's probably why I still believed I had won when I woke up. It was still early enough to get another hour of sleep in, and since the financial gain of a million dollars brings a certain sense of self-satisfaction with it, I had no trouble falling back asleep.
Then, I had another dream. This time, I was trying to figure out if I really won the Monopoly contest, or if I had just dreamt that I did. Real meta shit. In this second dream, I retraced the steps of the first dream, hunting for clues. Finally, it hit me. In the original dream, I yanked the winning piece off of the McDonald's cup while eating at a bar-style counter outside McDonald's. The fact that I hate eating at bar-style counters notwithstanding, I realized that McDonald's doesn't have that type of seating outdoors.
So, my second dream confirmed that my first dream was a sham, and my world collapsed. A moment later, in the real world, my girlfriend started poking me. It was time to drive her to the bus. I leaned forward, waiting for my head to clear up enough for me to realize just how pissed off I was. Then I noticed that one of our cats puked on the blanket at the foot of the bed.
It took a good thirty minutes for me to come to grips with the truth. I didn't find Boardwalk and I wasn't a millionaire. I really, really hate dreams like that. Plus, a cat puked on me.
Residual angst over not really winning the McDonald's Monopoly contest may seem like a bogus reason to skip out on today's scheduled Halloween coverage, but as my late father always said: Use whatcha got.
I'd feel better if I actually got to spend any of the money in the dream, but noooo.
On the plus side, It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown airs tomorrow night at 8 on ABC. If I wake up in a minute and find out that that's not true, I'll cancel the fucking Advent Calendar.
Posted by Matt on 10/27/2008. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
I usually write my weirder dreams down in my journal when I get up in the morning. It helps see where they’re going, if anywhere.
I watched the DVDs for Great Pumpkin on Saturday and Garfield yesterday. I don’t really have much else for Halloween besides a lot of random TV episodes and cartoon shorts, not being a big horror fan.