Most people may think that lawyers have no scruples and sleep like babies. Well, most lawyers are neurotic messes and control freaks, so sleep is often restless, filled with stress dreams.
You know, the usual stress dreams: your teeth are falling out, you are not wearing enough clothes, you are running but you can’t get where you are going, you forgot to drop a class in college and now you have to sit for the exam, or you forgot to graduate from law school. (Imagine the irony of waking up relieved that you are actually a lawyer and admitted to, and in good standing with, the state bar. That is more than mere irony. That is true perversion.)
On Tuesday, I had all of these stress dream episodes but I was watching them happen to other people. First, I passed a woman on the street who was wearing what looked to be a man’s dress shirt accessorized with a belt. It was so short that even for the summer in the let-it-all-hang-out culture of NYC, that she looked like she forgot to put on slacks or a skirt. It really weirded me out. Stress dream #1 √
I went into the subway where there was a pack of young Europeans blocking every turnstile and acting as if the turnstiles were a make-shift café. The train was coming and I was wading through a sea of Eurotrash humanity. I got through but missed the train. I stood on the platform sweating profusely (it is hot in the City). Out of the corner of my eye, I see a person on crutches I passed a half-block before the subway hopping down the stairs to the platform. Now, I know I am getting nowhere fast. Stress dream #2 √
The train comes and it is packed. I am cheek by jowl and nose by armpit with strangers. The man seated below me is talking to a friend and laughs so loudly that I look down — he is missing most of his bottom teeth. Stress dream #3 √
The train thins out at 96th Street and I overhear a woman talking about her daughter’s falling behind on her bar review course materials and freaking out because the bar exam is the last week of July. Stress dreams #4 – ∞ √
I arrived at my office, tired and freaked out. And glad I was awake and not living through my stress dreams starring random people on the street.
