Buddy has a tendency to show up in my dreams, which I attribute to his relentless insistence on messing with me while I’m asleep, whether it’s yowling in my ear for breakfast, deciding my nose needs grooming or just burrowing into me with a soft “Mrrrrrp!”
Last night, however, was a doozy. I dreamt I was back in high school, but instead of being in class I was in the newsroom at my first-ever newspaper job, which somehow occupied the third floor of the school building. I excused myself to go have a smoke — which I don’t do anymore — and walked down to the first floor where Bud was waiting for me near the door leading outside.
To say I was alarmed to find him just hanging out unsupervised in my high school-slash-workplace would be an understatement.
“Bud!” I said. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came here with you, remember?” Buddy answered, speaking as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “We took the Celica.”
I sighed.
“I can’t have you running around here where someone could snatch you,” I said. “You’re going back in the car until I’m done for the day.”
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are!”
“Oh yeah?” Buddy asked. “Where’s the car?”
And that’s when my dream morphed into a recurring nightmare, which is that I’m walking through a parking lot and can’t find my car. (In this case the car I got at 19 years old, a black Celica hatchback that was all sleek looks and underwhelming engine power. I still miss that car!) In these dreams I start to panic, redouble my efforts, and realize the parking lot is so huge, so endless that I’m gonna need a lift, someone to drive me around so I can look for my car
Maybe I can ease my anxiety in future dreams by dispatching Buddy to look for the car, but in last night’s dream he was clearly responsible for moving it.
“Bud…” I said. “What’d you do with the car?”
Dreams have a way of making it seem perfectly reasonable that a 10-pound house cat can not only speak, but drive a car.
I was absolutely sure that little jerk had hidden my car! (And here’s the standard disclaimer for all new readers: “little jerk” is a term of endearment when it comes to Bud. I love the little guy, obviously.)
I know it was just a dream, but it’s probably not a bad idea to hide my keys from now on…
Pain In The Bud 
Once I actually did lose my car at a large mall and had to have the security guard drive me around. Embarrassing doesn’t begin to describe it.
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I did this in France, underground carpark, 6 stories! spent over an hour looking. I had to go for a meeting and when I came back, I found it opposite the the entrance where I had parked it in the first place!
I like to think that it was just because I was feeling a tiny bit tired from overworking:)
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Carpark, very British! Your story is nightmarish!
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That would give me a panic attack lol. I don’t know why I have that dream, but it’s stressful.
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Yes carpark lol!
I have been known to say Parcark (dyslexia :))
I have a dream that I have to hurry to the airport and am late,( which is strange as I am never late) and my suitcase keeps opening and all my clothes fall out.
This happens over and over !
Anyway better stop otherwise you will think that I’m a basket case 🙂
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No worries, I’m over here writing about my talking cat stealing my car lol, so I’m in no position to judge. It’s like those dreams many of us have where it’s the end of semester in college and we realize we haven’t been to class in weeks, or haven’t studied for an imminent exam.
Dreams have an odd way of manifesting our anxieties.
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Thanks, glad to say that I have made some changes in my lifestyle and are not having so many weird dreams anymore!
And to be totally honest, I don’t think it at all strange hearing about Buddy stealing your car….:)
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Bella is also in my reams, except that while I think I am dreaming of a small pain in my nose getting steadily harsher at 5 am. I awake and find green eyes and a gentle outreached claw and persistent mewlings… drawing me closer to the food bowls.
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I have that dream of not knowing where my car is regularly! Although Tux is not along to find it! If he was, I am sure with his great sense of smell, we would locate it in no time.
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I wish I knew what that dream really indicates or why it happens. All I’ve been able to find is a bunch of nonsense written by supposed dream interpreters. There must be some real life anxiety it’s tied to.
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Your cat talks in your dreams?! Lucky you! Mine appear in my dreams sometimes too, only they are awful dreams! My kitty (whichever one is the guest star) is always in danger, or already gone. I rarely dream anything pleasant. They range from mildly bad to night terrors. It’d be so much easier if my cat could talk to me!
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Sorry to hear that. I know what you mean. Those dreams are never fun. I think it’s general anxiety that our cats could be stolen, or get freaked out by something and bolt out an open door or window.
I’m pretty sure, though, that if anyone ever stole Bud they’d be back within a day, covered in scratches and bite marks and begging me to take him back. Maybe Bud can teach your cats how to be lunatics like him, then you won’t have to worry.
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Thanks for this story about your missing car and dream Buddy! First cars have a way of imprinting, I still miss my Audi 80 and wish I still had it.
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Ya. When I was in college, (small, cozy campus type), there were two parking lots. One at the rear entrance out in the wild and untamed boonies of the Business and Industry buildings, and one very large parking lot which ran all the way from near the main street it was located on, up to a smaller couple of lots, one right in back of our student center (prime parking), which then led to a twisty, long narrow lot, that then led to the wild and untamed outer territories of the Waste Management building. I would arrive early, so I always parked right by the student center. I would spend a half hour before classes, and an hour at the end of the day studying and visiting with my friends there. So on one of these typical days after classes, I walked out to my usual parking spot to find not my truck parked there, but some old green beater. Needless to say, I panicked. I knew that I never parked farther out than that, and i just could not believe someone had stolen it. Even though it was not new, it was in very good condition and I always locked it. I knew the security guy on duty that afternoon, so I ran back into the student center and got the woman at the registrars’ desk to call and tell him that I thought my car had been stolen. He drove his security golf cart to the student center and proceeded to have a look at the “scene of the crime”. He must have helped other scatter brained girls in the same situation because he interrogated me about my day, and about whether I was ‘absolutely sure’ I had parked it in that exact parking space. I insisted that I had, saying that I NEVER parked anywhere else. He asked if I had my keys, (I did), and then, for lack of anything else he could do in his limited capacity of campus security guy (think ‘Paul Blart: Campus Cop’) he asked if I wanted to report it as stolen (I did). This was in the 80s, when most of the cars were manual locking with no magic GPS or beeping key fob. He proceeded to call the local police. I was totally freaked out by this time and almost in tears thinking how mad my mom would be, because it had been the family car before it was mine, and she had spent countless hours lovingly washing and waxing it to a high gloss. The details from then on are a bit foggy, but suffice it to say that either I, or one of my late staying friends remembered that I had given an impromptu ride to some acquaintance, and was late because I waited for them to be ready. I was so embarrassed. I wanted to sink into the floor right there in the student center. Thank goodness the real cops hadn’t had time to arrive.
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Nightmarish! But you’re right, at least you realized before the cops took a report that your car had been stolen. That coulda gotten awkward.
Reminds me of the time i went out drinking with my friends and the one person who wasn’t drinking, our designated driver, forgot where we parked. The rest of us were drunk and just accepted it when we followed him out of the bar, up a side street and he declared: “My car is gone! My car has been stolen!”
Of course it was right where we’d left it, one street over.
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