Negativity Sucks and Breeds a Pie in the Face

I had a strange dream last night. I was working at a trade show. The convention center was filled with hundreds of people interacting with others in a very solemn way.  Everyone was dressed in black as if attending a funeral. It was confusing to me that not one person smiled, as if the residing emotional committee had banned smiling.

I was representing a company that had invented a new type of vacuum cleaner that could suck unwanted thoughts out of the brain. The name of the company was Naysip, a clever play on old English and a comfortable means for extracting. Several models were on display, some looked like the traditional vacuums in stand-up or canister style for home use, but the big buzz was focused on the new hand-held model that also served as a smart phone. The device would drain your brain of negativity during your conversation and prevent you from saying anything you would be sorry about afterward. Wouldn’t that be handy?

There were several people I know working with me in the booth including my husband.  Someone came up and handed me a phone (not one of ours) and said it was Ben returning my call. I went to the back of the booth and sat down on a small couch next to a man also on a phone. I proceeded to have a terrible argument with this Ben person, telling him how unhappy I was with the service he had promised me but didn’t deliver. My emotions rose and my anger flared and I found myself screaming at him. I was responding to him with infantile name-calling and making rude noises like a school child. The people in the booth as well as others attending the convention gathered around with shocked looks on their faces.  I screamed into the phone, “You’re so stupid, you don’t even know!” I hung up. The man next to me ended his call at the same time. 

I turned to him in terrible embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb your conversation.”

He smiled, stared at me and then began to laugh. “That was me you were talking to.” The crowd surrounding us started to laugh too. My husband laughed the hardest. He turned to the others and reminded them that this type of conversation would have never taken place if I had been using Naysip. Had I been using our phone I would have only had access to the positive, mature and reasonable parts of my brain.

I was stunned into angry silence as I gazed around at the laughing crowd. Had I been set up with this quirky scenario? Was I being used in some secret sales promotion? Something on the display table next to me caught my attention. It was a meringue pie. Without the least bit of hesitation, I picked up the pie and smooshed it in Ben’s face. In the next moment, there were pies on all the display tables.

Pies began flying this way and that and everyone was covered with meringue, lemon, chocolate and coconut cream.  Pies were still being thrown when I woke myself laughing.

Professional dream interpreters might find symbolic meaning in the function of the Naysip, the humorless crowd, their wardrobe, my angry conversation with Ben, my husband’s actions or even the pies being thrown but I know exactly what the dream meant.

Learn to laugh at yourself.