We had moved into a really big house.
I mean multiple levels greater than two, a waterfront view, wrap-around swimming pool … the kind of house that you’d expect to see on MTV Cribs, except I’m merely a writer and have never had to/gotten to contend with crazy women throwing their panties at me on stage while I’m trying to work.
Anyways…
So we were having this party that was fairly big – I remember estimating in the dream that we probably had 75 – 100 people there, and everyone was just hanging out, enjoying the sun and the pool and whatever. The pool, in particular, was kind of cool because not only did it wrap around the yard, but it even I guess somehow went inside the house … I remember seeing a house like that on one of those Million Dollar Homes shows, so I’m guessing that’s where the inspiration was coming from.
At one point I remember talking to my cousin and uncle about whipping out our diving gear and going exploring … not sure if it was that deep, although that one show did feature an underground room that was technically inside the swimming pool!
There were also a bunch of kids there – like I said, it was a gathering of all of our family & friends, many of whom now have children, so they were all running around and frolicking and doing whatever it is that kids do, and at one point several hours into the day (I think the party was an all-day affair?), I remember asking a friend if we should take a quick run out to the store to go pick up some board games that the kids could all play. The landscaping around this house was incredible and seemed to grow even more vast as the dream progressed, so by this point there were a number of large, stone tables and chairs situated around the bends in the pool where people could sit and eat and drink and generally be merry while they watched others splashing around in the pool.
But apparently the most significant aspect of my party, as is the case with most parties, was the booze … because it was free! It seems that the community that we lived in was one that had all sorts of fancy amenities like concierge services and whatnot, and one of those services was private catering, in that I basically paid these people to bring in bartenders and presumably food and everything, and they set up a couple of bars by the pool and mixed drinks throughout the party – whatever people wanted.
The dream finally ended with all of our guests gone home and me chatting with our concierge liaison about how much all of the drinks had cost me that day. She said that she hadn’t gotten the final tally from her staff yet, but kind of laughed as she showed me a slip that said $10,235. Mostly in alcohol.
I spent the final moments of my dream mathing the hell out of that number to try and figure out if she was, in fact, just joking with me or if it was an accurate figure after all! At 100 guests, that would mean that each guest consumed roughly $102 in alcohol each … which at $5/drink was 20 drinks a piece … i.e. there would’ve been a lot of drunken people stumbling around by the end of this party!!!
Also, consider that not everyone would’ve been drinking, or at least not my pricey booze, which skews the number even further. I tried to reason that even at five drinks a piece throughout the day, that would’ve only been a bill of $2,500.
Maybe the bill also included catering or something, though admittedly I didn’t remember seeing any in my dream … mostly just the steady flow of tropical drinks from the bars!
Or maybe the numbers were padded to include compensation for her staff because that’s something that commonly happens with catering bills – instead of paying an Event Fee or a Catering Fee, each plate of chicken ends up costing you $35/each instead of $25/each…
After mulling about the figure long enough, I think I finally came to two distinct conclusions:
- The number must’ve been wrong and somehow $1,700 was a more appropriate figure.
- OR The party was awesome, and maybe when you live in a $10 million house, you don’t so much worry about things like the random $10k catering bill here and there…
But yes, all of those calculations did happen while I was still inside my dream. 😛