Last night, I dreamed that I returned to work at Starbucks as a barista, a position I last held 24 years ago. Yes, it’s been awhile.
Here are the details as I recall them:
- The store was either very big or in a very big space. The ceilings were vast, like the kind you would find in a convention hall. The store had two bars arranged opposite each other in a square, but there was something in the square between the bars, so to go from one to the other you had to walk all the way around, which seemed like a vast distance in the dream.
- I was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and had the sleeves rolled partway up. I think it may have been a turtleneck.
- We were either post-pandemic or in a dream version of the world where COVID-19 never happened, as no one was wearing masks. This was the only nice part of the dream.
- It was very busy. Orders were coming in fast, and I was clearly out of my depth. Everything I knew I’d long since forgotten. A customer asked for a triple, and I looked at the menu board, trying to figure out what a triple might be. He wanted three shots of espresso, of course, something any noob barista would know.
- I don’t remember if this happened, but it seemed like at least one customer remarked about how they knew more about my job than I did–which was accurate.
- I don’t remember how the dream ended, but I do remember waking up and feeling kind of crappy about it. On the other hand, the idea of working retail anywhere again gives me the willies, so perhaps the dream was just my mind’s way of reminding me, should I seek out some additional income from part-time work on the side.
In conclusion, I would like a nice dream about fluffy nice things tonight. Or winning the lottery and not having it turn out to be an ironic horror or something.
