I dreamed that I had ordered a louisville slugger online directly from the company (why I don’t know) with my choice of paint colors (it’s blasphemy to paint a louisville slugger btw). it was going to be a personal piece of memorabilia so it was important that it was perfect. And I was going to use it to play backyard baseball and maybe join a league, so it was important that the bat worked.

When it arrived it was badly warped. And by warped I mean it was carved out of the elbow of a tree branch. When you held it out to bunt, the end of it pointed at the pitcher. The end appeared to be a drawer knob screwed on & wrapped with electrical tape. I’ve seen stick bats that were more game-legal than this thing. I could’ve carved a bat myself for less than the $629.50 I’d paid for this one. (I have no idea why mybrain picked that price, or why I remember it.)

So I hopped in my car and drove to the factory, which for some reason wasn’t in Kentucky. it was in Lancaster county, PA. There I asked for a replacement and got handed a bat so old the black paint was flaking off. Plus, I suspect it was a modified chair rail because it wasn’t shaped like a bat. Oh, and it was warped too, just not as badly.

I asked for my money back & was told i could only get $200 back, but not in real money. I was given 4 options: gift certificates to township plays, gift certificates to township chicken barbeques, eBay rattan chair cushions, and a SEPTA pass only good to take the train home (thus stranding my car in Lancaster). The township GCs were only good in the township where you live, and the nasty woman who wouldn’t give me my money back wouldn’t listen when I said my township doesn’t do plays or chicken barbecues.

A moment on the decor in this dream. picture what your house would look like if all the walls were wooden paneling. now, take your floors out and replace them with stained cement. Replace your windows with ones that are two sizes smaller, and don’t open. Replace all your doors with ones that don’t quite close because all the door frames are warped, the walls are off plumb, there isn’t a square corner in the joint. This is especially evident if you use the bathroom, because the door won’t stay closed & looks rift out into the kitchen. Cover everything with soot. Throw out everything you own & replace it with $250 in furniture picked up at a yard sale in 1970. That’s what the bat factory in Lancaster’s main office looked like.

By now I had concluded this was not a legitimate Louisville Slugger.

As I was shaking the woman by the lapels demanding to know why I couldn’t have my money back (they’d spent it remodeling & redecorating) my boss’s boss intervened and convinced me to go get some dinner & go home.

He took us (suddenly Nighthawk was there) to a cafeteria-style buffet, which was built the same way as the bat factory. The food was mostly Italian, deli, or items-wrapped-in-crescent-dough, but everything was at least 5 hours old. I ended up with two sodas, a rock hard crescent mini-weenie, an egg roll made of crescent dough, and some cranberry goat cheese.

I don’t remember anything after that, but the dream kept going. I think I’m more tired now than when I went to bed.