Attack of the Chess Monster!

This odd dream involves two things I used to be into for a short period of time (chess and a woman) and throws in my crippling horror of being forced to once again work in retail. I still have nightmares about going to work at the department store I used to work at in high school, usually with the backdrop that graduating from Dartmouth and working my butt off to become a freelance writer failed to get me a better job.

This was originally posted on Clinton Nixon's collaborative weblog, Dogpile.

While at a gaming convention in March of 2002, I had a strange dream. Part of the weirdness may have been due to my decision to stay up until 7 AM playing D&D, for old time's sake.

Anyway.

I dreamed that I owned and ran a chess store, a shop that specialized in books on chess, chess sets, and hosted chess tournaments.

This is rather odd, considering I'm terrible at chess and most other abstract games.

So, I'm trying to run this store, fully aware that I know jack shit about chess. People ask me questions and I have no answers. They sense I am a fraud. I am losing cred with the local chess literati. Things look grim.

And then, they get worse.

My ex-girlfriend Melissa walks into the store, looking monstrously pregnant. I'm nervous about this development. We parted on bad terms.

She explains that she is pregnant with my child, and that to help support her I must now sell her books on the US legal system in my doomed chess shop. She's in law school and needs the money. This strikes me as odd, as last I heard she was studying to become a rabbi.

It dawns on me that I haven't seen her in 18 months. How could she possibly be pregnant by me? I ask about this, but she evades the question. I point out that my store is far from an economic juggernaut, and that perhaps she would be better served looking for a more appropriate venue for her work.

I spent the rest of the dream arguing with her about that point.

I sense this dream has a deep, deep meaning, but all I can extract from it is this:

"Don't open a chess store."