I may need to go get my rain boots on.

Because thus-far, this has been one of the grossest days I can recall.

It started this morning. I woke up and had intense visuals from my dream. As I thought about it and processed it, more of it came back to me.

Begin dream sequence

So, I’m living with my parents again, in their basement. This is the apartment I rented from them after my divorce, which was the second time I moved back home.

It’s a little hazy as to what happened that caused the skin on my left big toe to peel back, but I recall my mother giving me a shot of some sort. I was FREAKING out, likely stemming from my needle-associated trauma as a child.

I had Epilepsy as a child and had to go often to have my blood drawn. I recall it being a terrifying experience and my mother refused to be the one holding me down while I thrashed about, mostly because she didn’t want to be the bad guy who was doing this to me. Wise on her part, I think. So the doctor, all the nurses, even the receptionists had to come into the exam room and hold me down on the table so the doctor could prick me with the teeniest, tiniest needle and draw a minute portion of blood from my arm. Eventually, the symptoms of the disease spaced out and disappeared altogether and I didn’t have to continue with the harvesting of my blood any longer.

I am still freaked out by needles and if I have to get my blood drawn, I am both entranced and horrified but I can’t look away. I squirm, I squeak, I whine. Ultimately, I try to be tough because, c’mon… I’m a fucking grown woman.

Anyway, back to the dream. I was furious with my mother for giving me a shot and I was having an all out fit. My father was getting on my case about it, saying that mom was “just joking around” and this did nothing but further steam me because she KNOWS I’m afraid of needles, right?!

So I storm out of what used to be my basement apartment and go into their basement bonus room on the other side of the house. This room, interestingly enough, is also a room I used to live in when I moved back home with my parents the first time. It’s a large rectangular room and functions as my mother’s art studio.

I sit down on the couch, tending to my feet, where my mother was doing her needle invading. I notice that the skin on my left big toe is sort of shredded. I start to peel the skin back and notice that there’s a white, cottony substance just under the surface. I pull back the pieces of what appears to be spun sugar, and underneath are these round, blueish-green orbs that look a bit like mold. Of course, I’m horrified that there’s mold growing in my feet, so I work really hard to get everything out from under my skin.

GROSS, right!? This is just the beginning.

Once I have everything clear, I can see through the translucent layers of skin, that there are rows and rows of blue balls, smaller than one I just evacuated, and all neatly arranged in rows like crops. I’m freaking out at this point.

I called for my parents.

My mother sits down on the couch to my right, my father to my left. I show them what I’ve found. My mother doesn’t seem to be particularly interested and my father is grossed out. His face has turned white as a sheet.

I pull my right foot up and begin to inspect it. I don’t see any rows of blue orbs under my skin, but of course, this toe isn’t shredded. So I carefully tear a small hole in my skin and immediately this blackish-brown goo starts oozing out.

Initially, it’s a quick, slow gush like a pimple. As I squeeze at my toe, more comes out. And it smells… TERRIBLE. My father gets up and walks across the room, grabs a towel of some sort from my mother’s shelf and throws up into it. My mother is interested now and starts to help me expel this tar-like substance from my foot.

She is squeezing and squeezing and my foot is resting on a coffee table now. Eventually, there is a pile of this goo, about 7″ across on the coffee table, piled up like icing in a swirl. My mother goes to fetch something to clean it up and my father sits down to comfort me. I am losing my shit.

“What is wrong with me?!” I plead to him.

And all he can do is shush me and hold me in his arms and rock me from side to side.

In true Jami fashion, I sit up abruptly and say, “You’re going to have to convince me tomorrow that this all wasn’t just a bad dream!” And we all threw our heads back and laughed like a sitcom laugh track.

WEIRD. I promise, I haven’t watched any David Lynch lately and I haven’t seen a horror film or a surgical show or anything like that lately. This just came out of left field.

So, I’m laying in bed, considering this dream and what it means. Coming up clueless, I drag my ass into the shower and start getting ready for work.

It’s a BEAUTIFUL day, an easy drive with no traffic. I stopped for my Friday treat of designer coffee and cinnamon scone. Got to work, everything was fine. I’m replying to my facebook status about this dream when I spot something in the corner of my eye.

It’s not rare that things at my job are billowing and blowing around. We’ve got high ceilings and it stays pretty warm in here during the summer, so we’ve got fans all over the place circulating the air. My computer is covered in post it notes and business cards and reminders and phone numbers that are constantly flitting about in the artificial breeze.

But I spot something, and I look up and it’s a motherfucking cock roach/palmetto bug!! He’s just cruising along the top of my monitor. I leap up, scream like a mother fucking girl (nobody was in the shop, thank GOD, otherwise my usual bad-ass reputation would have been ruined: “oh my god, oh my god, a bug! ewww!”), rip my flip flop from my foot and swat at the motherfucker, killing him right as he turned the downward corner along the edge of the monitor.

His insides rocketed across my desk, landing five and a half feet away and splattering on the wall.

All together now, “EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!”

Roachy McNasty’s twitching, hollowed-out body landed on my desk, on a note. Thankfully, it was a note I didn’t need anymore. I grabbed the note and carefully slid it over to the edge of the desk and let him cascade into the trash can.

At this point, my adrenaline was pumping so hard I think I could have lifted up my desk with one hand and used the other hand to sweep any and all hidden comrades of Mr. McNasty’s out from under the desk. My heart was PUMPING.

Then I saw the goo on the wall. And I realized there was probably more good on my computer monitor. Yep. There it was. Goo. And a pair of legs.

Bless his little cockroach heart.

I get a napkin. I can feel my stomach seizing up, clenching and nausea takes over. I nearly barf as I clean up his remains but the closest thing I could throw up in is the very trashcan where the dead bug is still twitching. I can’t barf there.

I explained it to Ms. Winston that it would have been a vicious cycle:

Jami feels sick -> goes to barf in trash can -> regains composure – > sees dead bug, now covered in puke -> barfs again -> sees the bug again -> barfs again…

Eventually I would die.

So I’m sitting here, alone at work, nearly throwing up trying to take deep breaths and calm THE FUCK DOWN.

And I’m sitting there and looking from left to right at what just happened and thinking, “Holy shit. This is the grossest morning ever. It’s not even 10am yet.”