Mr. Tux Saves the World

I have never had anxiety dreams before.  I've never had any "forgot to study for that test" or "forgot to get dressed" dreams.  This fall, I'm transferring to a new university.  Even though I am not too worried about it, it must have been enough to trigger "back to school" dreams in me.  Such as the dream I had last night.

I'm in a kitchen (okay so the dream ended in a school, it didn't start in one) standing at the line, for those of you who don't work in a professional kitchen, the line is where they pretty much make all of the food and plate it to go out to the people who ordered it, and in front of me on the silver shelves are about eight huge clear tubes laying on their sides.  The clear tubes are full of little candies, each tube a different color and type of candy.  My job was to take the candies one by one and place them on a cookie tray according to the color of their wrappers.  It's a pretty tedious job, but it's what I'm supposed to do.

After the cookie tray is full of one color, I picked up and took it across the kitchen to an in-wall clear glass refrigerator where there were about 15 more different colored candies in 15 tubes, organized and ready to be placed on trays.

I put the tray down and turn around to open the glass fridge, when I turn back around, a little tubby man in a tux with tails is standing there.  He had a monopoly man mustache and seemed very out of place standing there in the kitchen.

He looked at me and said "is there enough for the beach?"

"Of course!"  I said even though I don't have any idea WHAT he was talking about.  I get it, Xenos people go to the beach this coming weekend, but what on earth does that have to do with colored candies?!  I still don't know....

Anywho.

"Miss, you're needed up stairs.  Apparently there is a dog, a penguin, and a hoard of campers who are doing something with a ball, 6 houses, and an old school bus.  I don't remember the details, but you might want to go up there and see whats going on.  It's in the courtyard."

I didn't verbally respond, but I did put down the tray, threw down my apron, and went around the corner and up the stairs.

I don't remember reaching the top of the stairs but I appeared in the courtyard facing a bus.  Sure enough a dog and a penguin were there waiting for me.  They could talk too.

I walk over to them and a man appears.  He tells the three of us that we have exactly six minutes to find the correct cardboard cut out of a tree that is hidden within one of the six houses, but be warned because this tree cut out is not like the others that are also in the houses meant to confuse us.  Once we find the tree cut out, we are to run out and use it to unlock the bus.  Hidden in one of the seats (that are shaped like toes - I don't get it either) is a small ball bearing and a single piece of hay.   We are to take the hay and the ball bearing, throw it over the wooden fence at the other end of the courtyard, then set the timer on the bridge for five minutes.  Cross the bridge into the park on the other side and be safe.  Oh, and we had to do all of this within 6 minutes or the ENTIRE courtyard would EXPLODE!!  Don't worry though, the hoard of campers will help us.

"GO"  he yells and we assume our six minutes have begun.

The dog and the campers split up into the houses, and the penguin and myself stay together to search the first house.  Oddly, the penguin had a sixth sense about finding the correct cardboard cut out.  He found it and took it to the bus.  Long story short, the dog, me, the penguin, and the campers were able to find the hay and the ball bearing, throw it over the fence, set the timer and cross the bridge all in time and safely avoided the explosion.

But, once we crossed the bridge to safety, the dog, penguin, and campers disappeared and the man in the tux showed up again.

"Come come or you'll miss the painting!"  he panted.... I realize now as I type this he was similar to my white rabbit.

He walked me to a trail that had rocks crossing a creek.  I'd have to jump from rock to rock to get to the other side.  OKAY!  I love creeks and I love jumping across them so off I jumped.  But on  the other side wasn't more woods and park, but I jumped into my school.

Okay let's take a break for a second.  I didn't jump into a building at Kent State or at OSU, I didn't even jump into my old high school.  Nope, I jumped into the lobby of good ol' Shanahan Middle School.  Now, since I left that school in real life, they've rearranged, where I had all my sixth grade classes are now the eighth grade classes and so on. but I jumped into the building as it was when I was there, only this time, I'm ten years older....whoa, I just made self feel really old there.  Okay back to  dream land.  Oh wait...did I mention the other kids there were all eating the walls?  Yup.  The school was made of fondant.  You know the icing the Cake Boss uses. Now back to dream land.

To my right of me was the principal office (before it was redone with a glass wall as anyone who went to Shanahan would know) and to the left of me was locker island (which I don't if that is still there or not).  My locker was in locker island and on it was taped my schedule and locker combinations.  I noticed immediately that as between each class, the locker combination would change to a new and the list of what it would change to was on the paper as well.  I open my locker and through my backpack (I don't know that the backpack showed up) inside and find these odd metal pans.  I inspect them and leave them in my locker as I close it.

"Did you forget about the painting?!"  the tuxed man said to me again and I spun around and he was standing there.

"Umm?"  I said and he put his hand over my eyes and took his hand off almost immediately.  When he did, I was on a black stage watching a bunch of people put together an ocean themed set.  I go to pick up a paint brush and I can't.  My hand goes through it.  I can'g grab it.

"They can't see you and you can't help them"  Mr. Tux says to me.

"Why?"

"I don't know!  I'm not in charge here, you are!  Maybe.  I don't know.  Am I in charge?  Yes I think I'm in charge."  At this point, I think he's forgotten I'm even there and he's talking to himself. "I dislike this.  I don't know I don't know I don't know!"

He finally remembers I'm there.  "Oh!  There you are!  I thought you wondered off again!  We can't do what we need to on this stage!  They can't even see you here.  Off to the seats!"

"You mean the house?"

"No, we blew up the houses at the park don't you remember?!"  He was very animated if you can't tell.  We walk down to the seats and he spins me around in a circle until I'm back in the lobby of the school (which for those who didn't go to my middle school, there wasn't a theatre in that building) with my schedule in my hand. I had already missed my first class and my second class was down the hall where I had my science class in the sixth grade (Woot go team 603! ---Sorry, Olentangy joke) and there was woman there in a red dress.

"Today is day one.  We are dissecting frogs today, tomorrow, pigs and by the end of the month, cows.  Hopefully your final in here will be a whale that the class can share." Said the lady in the red dress.  He had short brown hair and basically the dress made her look like orphan Annie all grown up.

None of us had any of the materials because it was the first day.  I remember leaning over and I found I had a box cutter in my pocket so I pulled that out ready to play frog doctor.  Before the frogs came out though, Mr. Tux appeared AGAIN.  He began to say something but I heard squeals instead of words.  He tried again to say something but again, squeals.  Then I felt a sharp scratch on my arm and the squeals got louder.  Another squeal and I woke up.....My dog Reo was in my room squealing trying to get me up so I would play with her.

Damn Dog. I wanna know where Mr. Tux wanted to take me next....