#dream.20081120: you can’t always get what you want
We’re at a bookstore, A. and I. It’s a used bookstore but it looks like a good haul. They have several copies of Snow Crash (for example) though they’re all in varying states of decay. I go through each one meticulously; I want to leave with one of them.
I get an alert on my phone. My bank has been sending balance update by text message. Convenient, but sometimes it’s troublesome to discover randomly, in the middle of the day that the $10 insurance co-pay you charged to your card turned into a $10,000 hospital bill instead. In a panic, we give up our search for the perfect used hardcover of Snow Crash and leave the store.
Hungry and hundreds of miles from home, we wander into a deli across the street. It looks like I recognize the proprietor (S.W.?). I ask for a ham sandwich; he gives me pastrami on rye. I hand it back. ”Ham it is.” And I get back pastrami on pumpernickel. He smiles and insists that the pastrami is the way to go.
