Hurricane / death anniversaries, dreams of chasing scammers down the toilet (not like TRAINSPOTTING)

While checking my email, I came across my Trivia Today newsletter. It was headed "Anniversary of Sadness," so initially I thought they meant Stevie Ray Vaughan's death anniversary in 1990. Hey, the music person in me can dream! ;) But then I realized that it was dated August 28 and not August 27... so I had to read it: they meant Hurricane Katrina instead. Yeah, that was pretty devastating too...

I had another weird dream: what else is new? This one started out as a relatively normal shopping trip to the mall since there was a HUGE sale on VHS tapes and DVDs, plus really nice sparkly colorful jackets / aprons / clothing in general. Once my siblings and I had hopped out of the van, we saw two groups of our friends: one was the older group (Jen, Nathan, Dawn, Kevin, Helen, etc.), and one was the teens like Sam, Joey, Chris, Mark, etc. Everyone went into the mall with my mom and bought a bunch of items. (the tapes were $2 only, and the red velvet jackets were like $10!) After we went out and had loaded things into the van, this group of people approached us and said that they needed money for a good cause. We demurred at first since we were going to go back in and buy at least one new computer, but it only took one good-hearted person to cave in and start writing a cheque before we all used our church offering envelopes for the same purpose. (the crowd mentality, don't ya know...)

After that, they thanked us and disappeared. Someone else who'd been watching this whole thing came up to us and said that the group was a bunch of scammers. To prove it, they took us to their hideout (so our purchases would be safe) which APPEARED to be a solitary hut, but was really warren-like with tons of mazes. The person let us view their toy dog robot, and then let us view a hidden camera they'd set up to track the movements of this group. After this, we were convinced that we had to get back our money. Someone noticed a tiny orange flag in the snow outside, and a yellow flag in the toilet. We went outside, and four people slipped under what looked to be thin ice, but was really a tunnel to another hiding place. The robot dog had changed into a dragon dog with magnificent wings. After some hesitation, we hopped on and it took us to the scammers' place.

We were reunited with the other four people, and we spotted the group of scammers. They recognized us, and the chase was on! We managed to get a couple of them, but Jon noticed a very subtle difference which proved they were decoys. So we chased them all the way around the field / forest until they disappeared down a hole. We went down after them, to find that it led to a bathroom with a few stalls. My mom had to go, and then whispered that we should "surprise" her to throw the bad guys off track. So my sister and I did that... the acting job was superb! We noticed subtle discolorations of the toilet water, and then saw a sign on one of the other stall doors: "We've absconded with your money. We needed it for our own causes. Hope this story is better than the one you gave us about the computers." That made everyone really mad... unfortunately, I woke up because the blasted phone rang! (I forgot to turn it off last night... argh!)

Still weird as all get out, though... I know Chinese Eric thinks white Eric lives in a maze (to that end, I'm glad I gave Jasmine Eric's number to call when she got lost and was walking for 20 minutes or something :P), but I have no idea where the rest of it came from! The toilet part might have to do with the "toilet exploding" of last night... it didn't, really. Plus, the subtle differences part might have to do with an old-time Shadow radio show I listened to last night. (for the first time in a MONTH!) It involved wax figures, subtle puncture marks, a weird French doctor, restorative, people coming back from the "dead," and a case of "murder." Interesting stuff...