The Empty Soda Can

So I said I’d be back to talk about my next dream, and here it is. Unfortunately, since I’ve waited for yet another night to pass, the details are very sketchy until the climactic scene, which I will now attempt to describe. For much of the dream, I’d been driving around some city that I believe was supposed to be Philadelphia—not that I’ve been to Philadelphia, in the last decade, but that seems right. What sticks out in my mind is that after driving around for a long time, I finally came to a bridge. The bridge was extremely steep—probably about a 55˚ grade—but there was a long line of cars on it, slowly inching their way up. I decided to follow. As I, too, inched up the bridge, I noticed that the left lane was mostly empty and took the opportunity to pass a few people—still moving fairly slowly, because of the grade, but faster than the people in the right lane. As I passed, I couldn’t help but notice that all the drivers in the right lane were pretty old, the kind of drivers whose ...

First of all, an explanation of the title: when I arrived at my first area in Spain—Sevilla Third Ward—my trainer immediately took me across the street to Alcampo, a store kind of like Super Walmart but (in Sevilla, anyway) with multiple floors. As we walked through the store, I happened to notice the CD racks and came across what was then the Cranberries’ new album, No Need to Argue . What’s more, it was a special edition, containing a live E.P. in addition to the full-length CD, itself. (I assume Europeans do that because CDs are so freaking expensive, over there; it sweetens the deal, a little.) I wound up purchasing it and sending it home, so I’d have it when I got back. Fast forward a couple of years, when I was back in the States and no longer bound by mission rules. As I looked more closely at the liner notes, I noticed that parts of the track list were misspelled: specifically, the title track—which was spelled correctly, elsewhere—was accidentally listed as  No Nedd to Arg...