It's 9:00a.m.

I had a dream that a bunch of us
were going to meet for dinner.

The restaurant decided upon
was one of those greasy spoons.
You know,
where everything is either fried
or dripping in its own grease.

I wasn't too happy about going to this place.
But I really wanted to go out with the group.

In my dream,
I knew these people well.
But I don't know who they were.
I don't know if they were family
or friends
or co-workers.
But I did know them.

When we arrived
the wait staff quickly pushed tables together
so that we could all be seated together.

When the mean came
I was really surprised.
It was a home style meal.
Good food, really good food.
It all had that home made sense to it.
And it came in plates that we had to pass round,
like a real home style meal.

When it was over
I told everyone how surprised I was
and how wrong I was
about the type of food it was going to be.

We decided to spend the night at my mom's house.
I don't know why.
We all slept in the basement.

And when I woke up the next day
I realized that it was 9:00a.m.
My son was very late for school!
I shouted at him to wake up
and get his school uniform on
so that we could get going.
He already missed first hour
and was into missing his second class of the day.
I called the school
to let them know we overslept
and were on our way.

When I woke up (in real life)
I realized that I had actually overslept.
I usually get up at 4:30am.
I woke up at 6:40a.m. . .
. . more than two hours later. ..
and ten minutes later than I usually get my son up for school.

Selling the Family Business

This dream was unusual.
My family in this dream
wasn't my family in real life.
In this dream,
all of these people were unknown to me real life.

My father was a tubby Greek gentleman.
And I had three brothers.
(In the awake world I have two brothers.)

We had a family business
that was going under.
I'm not sure what it was,
but I think it had something to do
with pet supplies or pet food.

I worked in the family business,
but I also had a job outside of the business.
So,
I didn't depend on this for my income.

An offer came from a large company
to buy the family business.
Except for one of my brothers,
no one in the family wanted to accept the offer.

I think my brother only saw the dollar signs.
He really wasn't too concerned
with what was best for everyone.
He just knew that he would receive
a significant chunk of change
if the business were sold.

I had another brother
was running for City Council.
He didn't want to sell
because he was using the family name.
He really had no business running for office.
He just wanted the fame of being in local politics.
Selling the business
wouldn't be good for his political name,
or so he thought.

Another brother didn't really want to sell.
But also realized that some sort of comment
needed to be made to the public.
The press had gotten wind of the offer
and started to follow us everywhere,
asking if we were going to sell.
He made some comments to the press like,
"we're examining all options,"
"we're taking all things into consideration."
He didn't really say anything.

A secretary who worked for us
always avoided the subject of children.
We never knew why.
Another of our workers found some candy
stuffed in the cushions in the couch in her office.
Only he realized that it wasn't candy at all.
It was drugs.
He said this is how the drug pushers
sell to children.
He wraps it up as candy
and then the kids get hooked.
The secretary burst into tears.
Amidst her weeping
she told us that that is how she lost her child.
Her son had died after a drug overdose
taking what he thought was candy.

At that point my father realized
that we had to sell the family business.
It would give everyone a new start.
It would bring jobs to the area
(something my brother running for office
could use in his political pitch).
And it would just give us more time
to be family,
not just business partners.

And I don't know what this means,
but my father wore white throughout this dream.
Sort of like that white suite Col Sanders wears. . .

So,
What does this all mean?
What's up with that white suite?
What does a family business symbolize?
Who were these people who in real life aren't my people?
And what of this child that died?