Verre

Increasingly frustrated, I was trying to rearrange the objects on the top shelf of the refrigerator. This was made challenging by the downward slope of the shelf and the fact that there was no raised lip at the front to catch things. It was also quite full, so the weight of the objects in the back was pushing down against the things in the front and knocking them off. My dad walked up as I was once again moving things around trying to find a more stable arrangement, so I complained to him:

"The fridge is full of bread—bagged bread! And milk." I screwed up my face, pronouncing "milk" with as much disgust as I could put into my voice. I've never liked milk, but thought I should provide a better reason for my objection. "The milk's going to go bad in a few days and then we'll have to throw it out."

"Room for more bread!" My father kept a straight face, but I was pretty sure he was teasing me.

"Look," I said impatiently, "If this is some kind of survivalist thing, we'd do better to stock complex carbohydrates than all this processed crap."

I was trying to make breakfast. I was standing in front of a kitchen island with a stove range with at least nine burners, maybe twelve, frying up slices of some sort of eggy loaf and making pancakes from a batter that appeared to contain whole grains of barley. Periodically I would go from there to the refrigerator, where I was checking on a large glass jar of liquid in which I was somehow (the logistics don't make much sense in retrospect) attempting to make a complicated frozen cube that contained a whole strawberry and some kind of alcohol.

After going back to the stove, I noticed that the things in the frying pan were on the verge of burning even though the heat was set to medium-low. What confused me even more was that the surface of the pancake batter appeared to be burning as well, though it was still in the bowl. I figured the latter must be an effect of oxidation, contact with the air, and mixed it up some more.

I checked on the refrigerator again and saw that at least my big strawberry ice cube was freezing properly, because it looked visibly white and opaque within the liquid. As I watched, it floated up and popped to the surface, but fortunately there was enough extra room at the top of the jar that it did not splash out and make a mess.

I went back to the stove... but now the arrangement had changed. Where was my frying pan? Had someone come and moved it? Now an empty ceramic baking dish was sitting on the hot burner! That wasn't good, they're not supposed to be used that way! I hastily moved it, and although I was concerned that the cookie tray I set it on might be cold enough to make it crack from the heat difference, I couldn't spot a better place to put it. The stove was crowded with pans and dishes, none where I had left them, and I wasn't sure what had become of the food I was frying just a moment earlier.

Who had come and re-arranged everything? My breakfast was going to be ruined! None of this made any sense! In desperate frustration I wailed aloud, "What the hell is going on here? What could it be? I don't understand!" But instead of recognizing the inconsistency as a clear dream sign, I woke up with those words still ringing in my head.