Not A Nightmare and Not A Daydream

I don’t know why the word nightdream doesn’t exist.  Nightmare, yes.  Daydream, yes.  But no nightdream.  I guess just plain “dream” is supposed to cover it, but I don’t really think it does.  I thought about that early this morning when the alarm woke me from a lovely dream that could only happen (at least to me) when I was asleep.

It wasn’t a scary dream.  But it wasn’t exactly pleasant either.  I was in the classroom (not an unusual nightdream location for a former teacher), apparently welcoming a class of first graders.  I was “introducing” them to the room and pointing out the coat hooks that marched along the walls on either side of one corner of the room.

There must have been several dozen of them — enough for the use of each student (none of whom were visible to me as I spoke.)  “These are our coat hooks,” I said.  “What do you suppose we’ll be using them for?”  (So inane, I thought to myself.  Why do we teachers say things like that?)

One little girl raised her hand (I knew that was happening but I still wasn’t seeing any students.).  “At home we use coat hooks to dry our spaghetti,” she said.  (That sounds logical, I thought.  They probably make their own spaghetti with one of those pasta machines.)

“Great!” was my response.  “But we probably won’t be making spaghetti here at school.  So what do you think we could use those coat hooks for?”  (Now I could see the children, seated cross-legged on the floor, still bundled up in their outside clothes.  Mostly jackets, I noticed.  No coats.  Should I be calling them “jacket hooks?’  But I repeated “Coat hooks” several times, each time saying the “coat” part louder — all to no avail.)

About that time, I woke up thinking, “Yeah.  Sometimes, you can lead a horse to water…”  It all made me laugh — a great start to a gloomy Friday morning.  Let’s hear it for nightdreams!

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