I’m not sure about you, but I did my taxes on April Fool’s Day.  It’s sort helps to alleviate the pain involved when the government takes money from you if you tell yourself “April Fool’s!”  They still take your money but it feels better when you think they’re joking.

Everything went quite well but my brain was a bit overwhelmed.  I say this because of the dreams I had when I finally dozed off.  I used a popular online source and their processes are incredibly thorough.  I can honestly say I’m glad they ask you several hundred questions but up until that night I had never been asked if I had money deposited in a foreign bank account.  All I could think was I wish they had an “I wish” button, but they didn’t.  I was up until 3 am and when I went to bed, this is what happened in my head once I drifted off to sleep.

Due to the fact that these dreams were so ridiculous, I am going to add some “logic” to parts of them that might help to explain where some of the colorful details came from.  These will be bits and pieces from my previous day and general statements that may sort of tie things together.   They will be situated between the brackets.  I am also going to add some thoughts that would have transpired if the dreams would have actually been true.  They will be featured in the areas between the parentheses.

[I’m going to work on my taxes much earlier in the day next year so the chances of having dreams like these are less likely to happen again.]

That was a sample of a thought much like the others you will see in brackets.  Those thoughts will be true statements.  I just want to get you prepared.

Dream:  It all started out when one of the women I work with found out that she was going to be a grandma.

[We have a ton of customers that purchase fabric for receiving blankets and burp clothes which might explain why there was going to be a baby.]

Dream:  When the baby arrived she found out her son’s girlfriend abandoned it at the hospital.  She brought the baby to work and gave it to me.  I remember being very concerned about what to feed the baby and I remember it being wrapped in a blanket made from royal blue tie dyed blizzard fleece.

[We sell a ton of blizzard fleece and I sold some of the royal blue to someone recently so that explains the baby’s blanket.]

(Don has been gone all week for work.  I typically use these times to make a few changes in the house but adding a baby has never crossed my mind.  He claims to be very observant but he does miss a few things from time to time.  I think it’s safe to say he wouldn’t miss this little surprise.)

Dream:  All of a sudden I was shopping at Walmart.  I suppose I was stocking up on diapers and formula and I noticed the work attire had drastically changed.  The employees were wearing maroon and gold satin robes and large sequined hats.  I can’t even begin to explain my reaction.  As I began to slowly recover from my visual shock I was approached by an elderly lady.   She mistook me for an employee and began grilling me on why the regular price of a three pack of men’s t shirts were less expensive than the ones on clearance and ended up storming off to the checkouts with the more expensive clearance ones.

[We have cranky confused customers all the time in our store and sometimes the decisions they make, make no sense.]

Dream:  In a flash I walking down the street past the old school I attended through the sixth grade.  I knew the building was getting old and unsafe but I saw a woman standing in the open doorway talking to a child and I thought about how fun it might be to walk over there and take a look.

[That old school burned to the ground many years ago.  I think about it often which is probably why it popped up in my dream.  It was a really neat building and it held a lot of really great memories for me.]

(If I was actually visiting my hometown and making an attempt to go inside a building that is no longer there, Don would be taking my measurements for a jacket with lots of buckles and extremely long sleeves!)

Dream:  The final stop landed me at the post office where I worked for 13 1/2 years.  There were several people in the office and everyone appeared to be incredibly focused on what they were doing without realizing I was even there.  I walked back to the sorting case and received a rather eye opening shock!  There was a mountain lion standing there!!!!  I carefully turned around and walked quietly to the bathroom that was now located on the opposite end from where it was when I worked there.  Once the door was closed, I pressed the button on the microphone that was attached to the headset I was wearing and informed everyone that there was, indeed, a mountain lion lurking around the sorting case!

[I had to think about the logic on this one but then I remembered how I played an April Fool’s joke on one of my co-workers by telling her there was a mouse in the break room.  She was as terrified as I would have been if it was a mountain lion and she immediately started thinking about how we were going to get rid of it.  Her eyes were riveted to the spot the “mouse” was “hiding” and started discussing a list of people we needed to call.  I wanted to hang onto the gag a little longer than I did but I really didn’t want a bunch of people to receive phone calls about a hypothetical mouse!]

(If I ever really run across a mountain lion at work or anywhere for that matter, my first instinct would be to pet it and scratch it’s chin and run my fingers down it’s back to see if it’s tail would pop up like the tails on domestic, pet variety cats but I’m betting something would stop me before I convinced myself petting, chin scratching and tail tests were a good idea.)

The next morning I jotted down a few notes to make next year’s tax preparation a bit easier.  I’m thinking morning or early afternoon will be a good time to work on this next year.  I’m also having second thoughts about the significance of that mountain lion in my dream.  He may have been the IRS.  They do have similarities.  They’re both vicious when provoked, sneaky and unpredictable and why did that elderly lady mistake me for a Walmart employee?  I wasn’t wearing a maroon and gold satin robe and I distinctly remember leaving my big sequined hat in the car that day!