WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH 2025
I dreamt last night that I had to stand in for a teacher at a high school. I found myself surrounded by hundreds of teenagers.
After a few minutes, I was scammed out of my cell phone. For some reason, I was also persuaded to take off my shoes. The shoes promptly disappeared.
Next thing I was walking around in my socks asking about my cell phone. I said that I needed to contact my family in South Africa, and how could I do that if I didn’t have my phone.
I was ignored, and every now and then laughed at by groups of teenagers standing around everywhere.
After a confusing hour of wandering around among what now felt like thousands of teenagers, someone helped me find my phone. All the phone numbers and WhatsApp messages and so on had been deleted.
I still couldn’t find my shoes.
Two young ladies who were responsible for the disappearance of my phone tried to explain that their lives were not easy either.
Not only did I have no sympathy for them, but I had a strong desire to wish them an early death. (Note that I did not consciously think these thoughts. Nevertheless, the full thought was that I wanted to wish the teenagers not just an early death, but a painful early death.)
I woke up with a headache, thinking: What a nightmare.
The feeling that pressed even after I had lifted my head from the pillow was that I was old, and small, and powerless, and useless.
(Roll the drums for a Grok-created image of a happy, smiling, bald, middle-aged man.)
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