I had gone to the shop of Omalee (my sister's mother-in-law) on Second Street in Portsmouth, Ohio. I had heard that Omalee had been upset because no one from my family had visited her lately. Actually, I wasn't that interested in seeing her; I really only wanted to look around the shop and I hoped she wouldn't be there. When I stepped into the shop, I saw another woman standing behind the counter and I thought I had probably missed Omalee. But then I saw Omalee's white-haired head behind the high glass counter top and I knew I would have to speak with her. She walked out from behind the counter and I walked up to her in a friendly way. Sensing that she obviously wanted to hug me, I walked up to her and put my arms around her. Although I squeezed her bulky frame tightly, she wanted me to squeeze even tighter, and I did so. After all, in a sense, she was part of my family, so it was appropriate for me to be as friendly as I could. We broke apart and chatted for a few minutes and then I began looking around the store. I had always liked coming to this store in Portsmouth because the store generally had so many more unusual things than similar stores in Dallas, and the prices here were more reasonable. At the same time I felt a little ridiculous because looking at all this junk was a waste of time; but I just liked browsing so much.

The first thing to catch my interest was a stack of magazines. An old Time magazine was on top. The last time I had been here I had found a bunch of old Time magazines which I had bought. I stared at the cover and saw it was a copy which I particularly wanted, from the 1940s with a cover-picture of Sigmund Freud. I had once before had a chance to buy this magazine at an estate sale but I had failed to do so. Now I was going to have a chance again. But when I bent over to pick up the magazine and looked at it more closely, I realized I was wrong. The magazine was much newer than the 1940s, and Sigmund Freud was not on the cover at all, but rather a story about horror movies. I was disappointed, but nevertheless I still wanted the magazine, which was in excellent condition and didn't even appear to have been read. The magazine was flawed by a mailing label on the front; but I knew how to take off the label by soaking it with lighter fluid. I noticed the mailing label said "Kroger," as if the magazine hadn't been actually mailed to anyone but had been sold at Krogers.

I looked at the next magazine, another Time which also contained a cover-story about monster movies; the magazine had the same type of mailing label on it. The labels seemed unusual, but I was sure I could take them off. I leafed through the rest of the stack and found several more Times as well as some copies of Mad magazines which I wanted. I saw also quite a few copies of "Life," but I wasn't interested in those and I left them there. When I was finished and I had all the magazines I wanted, perhaps 10, I arranged them neatly in a stack and turned them over, so their back covers were facing up, and I put them back on the stack. I would just leave them there that way until I was finished looking around the store. That way no one else would probably notice them and I could pick them up when I was finished.

I began wandering around the store. There was so much to see. The first thing to catch my attention was what looked like a long low Mickey Mouse lamp. It was about 60 centimeters long, like a television lamp. But when I picked it up, I saw it wasn't Mickey Mouse at all. It took me a moment to recognize that it was the cartoon character Dudley Dooright. He and some other character were riding along in some kind of vehicle. It was a rather exquisite piece; I immediately liked it. Where his eyes were supposed to be were two large sockets with a light in each one. I immediately wanted the lamp: I liked character pieces like this, especially ones which I had never seen before. I turned the lamp over to see if I could find the price. Finally I saw a price tag on the back which looked as if it said 26.50. The price seemed a little high to me, but I thought I would buy the lamp anyway. I set the lamp back down for a moment. However, when someone else walked up and stood by me, I was suddenly wary the other person might take the lamp. When he walked on, I decided I had better pick the lamp up and hold it. So with the lamp in hand I continued walking around. I didn't see much else. I did see a small statue of the Snoopy character from Peanuts which I found interesting. But at the same time I didn't need to be buying a lot of junk, even if everything was cheaper there than in Texas. Besides, it was time to go. I remembered that my mother was also in the store, that she had come with me, and that she was ready to leave. I couldn't dally much longer.

***

I was trying to remember everything that had happened at Omalee's store. I now knew the episode had all been a dream and I wanted to write it down. It seemed the dream contained a clear message which I needed to try to understand. Once before I had dreamed about Omalee and her store. At that time, I had concluded the dream had been telling me that if I persisted in interesting myself in the kind of junk that Omalee sold, I would become the kind of person Omalee was. Even though I liked Omalee, I never wanted to be like her. She was extremely overweight and seemed to lead a rather meaningless existence. This dream had obviously been again telling me the same thing.

As I thought back over the dream, I thought it was interesting that Sigmund Freud had appeared on the cover of Time. What would Jacobs think when he read the dream? He would probably misinterpret Freud's appearance, thinking I had some attraction to Freud's ideas. I knew, however, that the opposite was true: I found Freud's dream theories to be quite wayward. However, I was glad to see Freud emerging in my dreams. I had focused on Freud's theories recently, and I had thought quite a bit about what he had to say. Although I didn't agree with Freud, I was encouraged to feel some of his ideas taking a strong enough hold of me for him to be appearing in my dreams.

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