I have never seen the TV show “24,” but I have heard that it’s about an organization that has to defeat bad guys in tense showdowns.  I read this weekend that Fox is canceling the show.

This morning, I dreamed that I was in an episode of the show.  The good guys used a mobile Wendy’s restaurant as their cover.  They tracked down some terrorists and defeated them by riding around in this full-sized Wendy’s on wheels.  When it was time to leave a location, the restaurant would pop off the ground and roll on to the next town.

When the episode ended, I had to walk to work in Raleigh on a road covered in snakes.

What a night. I had some marvelously vivid dreams.

First, I dreamed Rush Limbaugh showed me his two children. They were mostly air-filled and floating in a swimming pool.

I then dreamed that my mom and I had to fly to Boise, Idaho, to manage a circus for the weekend. We were flying on Southwest, and I was trying to write my name and address on one of those paper luggage tags at the ticket counter. But they all were TWA luggage tags and people had already written on them.

Later in that dream, I was in a St. Paul, Minnesota, motel. I saw a couple of dark-suited, sunglassed men stealing the contents of my room — including the motel’s furniture. My gut told me they were agents of some kind. As they were driving away, I jumped through an open window and into their vehicle. I put my hands over the driver’s face. He proceeded to show off his considerable memory by reciting which intersections were were crossing as my hands blinded him. I grabbed the wheel and crashed us into a house.

Maybe I’m not watching enough television.

I just had an unusual dream. I’ve lived in this house for four years, but this was the first dream set in this house. That means it’s time to move. This dream also had an unusual, nearly logical story arc.

The dream started in the living room. I heard the sound of a fire siren and a child outside screaming, “The house is on fire!” I looked through the window at the house across the street. I saw a police car and a fire truck. About 16 children were running out of the house, which didn’t appear to be on fire.

I heard a knock at the door. It was some guy I’d never seen before, but two of my friends in the kitchen knew who he was. They sat around and talked.

I went outside and the police told me the guy who knocked on my door tried to shoot somebody in the house across the street. The SWAT unit was in position, but it consisted of the present-day ladies from the band Heart. Their main weapon seemed to be the dramatic use of walkie-talkies. I saw some sniper rifles sitting around, but they were unmanned. Ann and Nancy were running around screaming into their radios.

I offered to help them through a bizarre series of car trips out of the neighborhood. I’d go in the house to get something, come up with some reason to leave, get in the car and leave, come back to the house to get something else — but the suspect never got suspicious.

Eventually, it was go-time. I was trying to tell Heart that the guy was in a position where they could bust in and get him safely. They didn’t understand and threw me a walkie-talkie. When I told them, mass chaos broke out among them and the hundreds of onlookers who had gathered. They all ran around as I stood in the cul-de-sac. That’s when I saw the suspect emerge and walk through the crowd.

I screamed, “There he is!” Two real police officers handcuffed him. That’s when the victim of the threatened attack came out and said it was all a misunderstanding and offered everyone a beer.

“No,” I said. “You’re crazy and I’m moving.”

It’s been quite a week for dreams.
 
This morning’s dream was set in my grandmother’s house.  A medium-sized dog was lying on the floor.  I generally don’t like animals, but I sure liked this one.  It came over and climbed up in my lap. 

I wanted the dog to do a trick.  So, I rolled my left hand into a fist, put it in front of my lips and sang a song backwards into my hand.  I continued my mime routine by moving my fist to the dog’s ear and letting go.  I said to the dog, “OK. Sing.”  It howled along.
 
I tried to get someone in the kitchen to pay attention and watch the trick.  By the time anyone looked, the dog had returned to the floor, sound asleep and unmovable.  I then had a Tupperware container with about four little grubs that were shaped like sheep.  They had four little black legs on a fleshy, white body.  They had smaller heads with a little black coloring around the snout.  I felt great affection for these sheep grubs.  They climbed around the bottom of the bowl.
 
Later, I felt they needed some water in the Tupperware container. I went to the faucet in the kitchen and opened it up slightly, but water gushed out. I thought the sheep grubs would drown. I tried to pour out the extra water. A small plastic plane floated in the water. It was a white commercial airliner with “AIRBUS” written on the side, the same kind of plane that landed in the Hudson River earlier in the afternoon. I couldn’t pour out the water fast enough.
 
I put a card of some type on the top of the container to pour out the water, but keep the plane and sheep grubs inside. I emptied the container, pulled away the card and peered inside.

The plane was resting on the dry bottom, its portside wing broken off.

The sheep grubs were crushed.

Another political dream this morning!  Here’s yesterday’s. Enough, already!

I dreamed that I was appointed to the U.S. Senate.  My office was in a wood-paneled single-wide trailer.  It was like one of those work trailers on a construction site.  It was very underwhelming.  They misspelled my name on the nameplate, and I was a little miffed.

I then found myself walking around the mall with Hillary Clinton (!).  She was wearing a white turtleneck, teal sweater and white jeans.  Mrs. Clinton was very pleasant.  I introduced her to my grandmother, who was walking in the mall and wearing an Obama button.

Let’s just say that my grandmother has never worn an Obama button.  It was a surprise.  I didn’t know how Hillary would feel about it, but everything was fine as they shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

Hillary and I walked by the T.J. Maxx.  She stopped suddenly and excitement gripped her.  She said we had to go in.

Hillary’s eyebrows raised as she turned toward me.  She nodded knowingly and pointed through the window.

“They have some really beautiful masks in there.”

Here’s the dream that woke me up at 3:10 this morning.

Obama’s inauguration was the next day, and I had to move out of my house. It’s not clear if I was the sitting president. I wasn’t moving out of the White House. I just had to move by noon the next day. It was understood. I hadn’t started packing until the night before.

The next morning, we went to the house where Obama was staying. He had sprayed artificial snow on his yard. We marveled, took some photos and left.

Then, I had to host a game show. It was for the competition! For that certain ABC station whose channel number is divisible only by itself and 1. It was a student quiz show, set in a dank classroom. Everyone treated me poorly. I was grumpy.

The show started without me. When they got to the first commercial break, I asked the — well, I guess she was the producer, but she also acted as the hostess, why they needed me if she was hosting.

“I guess we don’t.”

“Fine,” I said. In front of the audience of parents, I turned around and told her, “I think this is poor.”

I went outside and it was dark. I looked at my watch. 10:35 a.m., but the moon and stars were the only things in the sky. I remarked that it’s “Tenth Night,” which I understood to be the day when it’s dark. Beyond the tree line, I saw a fair-sized multistory office building lift off the ground and fly away. Then, another one took off. By this time, I’d fumbled around in my pocket and grabbed my cell phone. I got video of the third building flying away.

I hopped in my car and pulled out of the parking lot. As I pulled out, I noticed an old car following me. I panicked. As I turned out of the parking lot, I saw a white sign with big red letters:

WARNING
Beware of:
*Actors
*Aircraft Noises

I looked in the rear-view mirror. The old car was still there. Through its windshield, I saw two stocky men in their mid-50s. They looked angry. And I realized they were twins.

The driver pointed at me, then curled his finger slowly, telling me, “Come here.”

I woke up.

I know a perilous dream when I’m in it.

I dreamed last night that my teeth fell out while I was driving down a busy interstate. I was much more concerned with saving my teeth and getting to the dentist.

I ambled over to the passenger seat and looked around the driver-side floorboard. I saw lots of white things that looked like teeth — but when I picked them up, they were just popcorn.

I think this is the result of eating a lot of popcorn in the past couple of weeks (Act II Kettle Corn Mini Bags [only 110 calories per bag, 15 fat calories]).