On Friday night, while everyone else who writes for prairie dog was going to see Metric and Stars play at the Brandt Centre, I stayed in, ate trail mix and played video games. But that night I dreamed that I ended up at the concert at the last moment.
My sister bought me a ticket because her fiancee had dumped her and taken up with a young woman in Paris, and she was feeling insecure and in need of cheering up. It was a lot of back story, mostly cribbed from a Meg Ryan movie, and pretty much unnecessary. I don’t even have a sister. And if I did, she wouldn’t look like The Architect from The Matrix Reloaded.
In the dream we took a cab to the Brandt Centre. It looked suspiciously like my junior high gymnasium. I presented my ticket to the person at the door, who turned out to be Emily Haines, the band’s lead singer. She was dressed as a crossing guard.
“Hi Ms. Haines. Here’s my ticket,” I said.
“I’m so glad you could make it, Aidan. All 167.4 cm of you,” she said. She took the ticket, which was about the size of my Honours thesis, and ripped it in half with one clean motion.
“It’s no big deal, Ms. Haines. I only live 1.8 miles away.”
“You mean 2.9 km.”
“Oh yeah. Hey, I’ve been wondering if barometers are cool. Should I get a barometer for my home office? I want that ironic nautical look the kids are into these days.”
Emily smiled and reached out to pat my shoulder. “Only you can discover the answer to that, Aidan. Look into your heart. It has an approximate mass of 250-300 g.”
She kept patting my shoulder, and I realized that she was using a dried chicken’s foot to do it. I woke screaming.
At least they played Black Sheep. I love that song.
