By: Caius [2001-12-14]

The Shop of Three Compartments

This is not my staff.

It began in a hotel in San Francisco. There were people who I knew in the dream, but I knew they were not from real life. I was talking to two separate people who were sitting on a couch and started to feel a little scared, so I said "Hey, I have to run and eat breakfast now" and grabbed a staff that was sticking out of the ground and started to run with it. I then stopped, turned around, ran back, said "This is not my staff" and left.

I felt like I woke up at this point, but knew I didn't, then thought I had amnesia, as I had woken up in a random place talking to a random person, a guy in his fifties. He was explaining to me how to run the shop. He also had a moustache, which is very important.

The first compartment was a secondhand store. It was dirty. I walked out onto a balcony that had plants, at which point he pulled me into the second compartment. We had to leave the building, go downstairs, go up a different set of stairs, and then enter the second compartment.

At this point, I realized that I was in San Francisco, though the city looked completely different. The sidewalks were made of bricks and there were trees.

Before we went in, he pointed to a sign that said "THE VALUES OF THESE BOOKS ARE ASSESSED ON THE PREMISES." He advised me, "This is a lie. Don't pay any attention to this sign." "Gee, that's great. Am I supposed to be running this store or something?" "Well, I would hope so, by the middle of this week. I'm leaving, and you're taking over. Don't you remember any of this?" I thought to myself that I knew I would have to go back to NJ at some point, that I did not belong in San Francisco, that I had amnesia and had tried to get a job here then forgot about it. This compartment was, obviously, a bookstore. I looked in and there were books piled very high. We never went in. It started to get dark outside. We went back downstairs and up another set of stairs to the third compartment.

He opened the door for me and I looked inside. It was brightly lit, as if the sun were shining through, the floor was black and white checkered tiles, and there were cafe chairs to the left. To the right was a wooden bar with a dark finish. Behind it was a younger, heavier, bald man. What hair he had was black, and he was clearly Italian. The walls were yellow, the paintings hung on them were abstract, and there were plants in pots hanging from the cieling with vines hanging below.

The barman took over for the older guy, who was now standing in a corner. He looked at me and said "We don't serve drinks here, only clams, except they're not really clams. This is not a clam bar per se; really what we serve here is mussels." I nodded. "Uh huh." "We give the clams to all the customers." (whenever he said clams, I was thinking of mussels.) He pointed out a big bowl of them on the bar. "Everyone in this town is a criminal," he digressed, "and we give them all the clams so that they go to jail." The phone began to ring and he excused himself.

I woke up, and the phone was ringing.
Clams [2001-12-14 00:30:39] Jacques Kitsch
You're Staniel's friend, huh? What a dream, lots of good details, but I'm going to have to think about how clams make you go to jail. The calamari salad in Jersey has black mussels but here not, they have to find other reasons for busting people. If people clammed-up they wouldn't go to jail.
invertebrates... [2001-12-14 08:28:24] sally
as punishment? it would keep me in line, at least.
Line-up [2001-12-14 08:34:40] Jacques Kitsch
I like clams a lot, but I don't think that I'd get in line for a clam.
Clams vs. Mussels [2001-12-14 08:53:40] Caius
I am not sure what the significance of calling the mussels clams is, however it was not meant that eating or being given a clam causes one to go to jail. It is more like a rite of passage TO jail.
Umberto's [2001-12-14 09:03:54] Jacques Kitsch
I got a connection in my alleged mind between clams and the mob, I always think of Umberto's in the City."Umberto's"
seafood [2001-12-14 09:19:40] staniel
The peculiarity of this dream would have been increased if they were geoducks, though.
Geoducks [2001-12-14 09:34:48] Jacques Kitsch
"Umberto's House of Geoducks" hmmm...I don't know if that's less menacing or MORE so.
how about... [2001-12-14 13:13:32] staniel
Tina's Geoduck Factory!
A Tina Video [2001-12-15 07:15:30] Jacques Kitsch
"I Like to Watch"
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