Beech Tree News Network

I had one of those dreams again.  The dreams that place me in circumstances beyond my control.  The scenario isn’t always the same, except for the restaurant scenes.  There is always a restaurant scene.  I am always the only waitress who is working.  I’m waiting on five tables at once—always five.  The other wait staff is talking and laughing.  I don’t ask for help.  I wait for them to offer, but they never do.

All sorts of things go wrong in these dreams.  I try to take all the orders at once, then change my mind and decide to focus on one table at a time.  The table I focus on always wants extra attention, so things rarely work out.  Someone is always angry and either walks out or reports me to the manager.

This last dream had a twist.  I was asked to put together a flower arrangement while I was waiting tables.  The customer asked for red and beige flowers—beige, I know, right.  Before I put the bouquet together, I tried to figure the cost.  I didn’t have a calculator, and I kept getting the tax wrong.  I decided to abandon that task and look for the flowers.  I asked the restaurant hostess for help.  She pointed me to a storage room that held all the arrangements.  I kept pulling out blue flowers from the overhead bin, not the red and beige ones requested.  I became so frustrated that I woke up. 

Dream analysts would tell me to focus on the color of the flowers in order to understand what the dream was trying to tell me, but I know better.  I know better, because I’ve had this dream sequence and its variables many times before.  It always happens when I’m going through stacks of paper and I’m feeling overwhelmed. 

Since my retirement, I’ve been going through mounds of paper, some of it decades old.  Registration papers on dogs and appliances we no longer have.  Receipts for taxes we are no longer accountable for.  Occasional gems, like notes Natalie and Nikki wrote to me as children, pictures Sabria drew when she and Nat lived with us.  I’ve boxed up, shredded and burned for days and barely made a dent.

Before we sold New Image Car Care, many of our accounts had gone paperless.  Accounts payable were sent by email.  Accounts receivable went directly into our bank account, an email sent to notify us the bill was paid.  I understand.  I really understood as I watched the guys load dozens of boxes of files into the bed of Garey’s pickup to be unloaded on shelves in his shop at our house.  If the paperless trend continues, the new owners will have far fewer boxes to store.

Each company that announces their new paperless accounting practices says the same thing: We’re going green!  And yes, there is always an exclamation point at the end of that sentence.  I understand.  They don’t have to buy stamps and they can get by on a lot less paper.  “This is good for the environment!” they crow.  You can’t argue with that reasoning in this “climate change” era.

I’m not sure, however, that it is especially good for all the administrative assistants who spend even more time in front of a computer screen.  As much as I hate sorting through paper, at least I have the pleasure of shredding and bagging the rejects, taking the shreds to the barrel beside Garey’s shop then burning them to ash.

During this process, I am outside in the sunlight, watching squirrels and birds flit from tree to tree, while breathing fresh air—upwind from the burn barrel.  It doesn’t get much greener than that.