Dream Interpretation: DOs and DON'Ts

I had this dream a couple of weeks ago...but no, wait.

First let me tell you that I know you don't want to hear about my dream. People hate hearing about other people's dreams. Because it's like this:

1) "Hey, I had this crazy/amazing/scary/weird dream last night." {And then they proceed to tell you a vague, boring, disjointed story that has no narrative arc because IT WAS A DAMN DREAM. I get it--I've had dreams before. It seems really cool and important while you're in the middle of it, but most of us just don't have the rhetorical powers to do our dreams justice. So instead, let's just go get some frozen yogurt and gossip about a mutual friend's relationship problems.}

2) "Hey, I had a dream about you last night." {SUBTEXT: "Wherein YOU were doing something gross or weird...let me tell you about it." To which I respond: This is not my problem.}

So anyway, back to my dream:

In the dream I had snuck into my friend Vicki's house and stolen a knife out of her knife block--one that was really dull--with the plan of taking it to the kitchen store to be sharpened as a birthday surprise. So I took the knife to the store and the two guys working there poured vegetable oil on the counter and sort of sloppily sloshed the knife around in the oil, all the time talking to each other about Fantasy Football. When they had finished, one of them went over to a cash register and, "Beep-boop-boup--that will be $106.36."

And you guys, in my dream, I started sobbing. Wailing like I was at a Romanian funeral. But I wasn't really all that upset--it was just that I was hoping that those guys would cut me a deal on their shoddy workmanship because, HEY--a lady's crying over here. But the more I cried, the less concerned they looked. I woke up and there were ACTUAL TEARS streaming down my face. I'm here to tell you it was intense.

So, why the hell did I just tell you that? Because that wasn't just a dream, it was my brain thumping me on the side of the head saying, "Look kid, you just exercised the nuclear option and it didn't make one bit of difference, did it?" And you know, that's been happening to me a lot lately in actual reality. I pull out all the stops, perform the grandest gesture I can think of, and whoever it's directed at is just sort of like, "ehhhhhhh. What else you got?"

All this is probably in my horoscope and stuff, but my dream pointed it out to me instead. So dreaming was actually useful this time! Did it give me the answers to what to do about it? Hell no. But my point is, THIS is dream interpretation, my babies.