Weird Dreams, Pirate Edition

Let myself crash last night, and so had an amazingly weird dream; I probably need to do that more often. 

In the dream, we (some nebulous group of "us", I'm not sure exactly who) were staying in a mansion and apparently a group of pirates had taken over the basement. And that was weirdly all fine until a couple of us tried to go downstairs and ran into the guards, who started shouting orders and pointing guns and generally acting all piratey and what-are-you-doing-here-ish. In the midst of this, one of them demanded my cell phone, which he promptly used to call the rest of the pirates to come and deal with us. 

If the dream turned violent then, I don't remember it; I don't think it did. The next thing I remember is that in order to make my escape, I had to follow a couple of other guys by climbing up a ski slope that was both steep and still covered in snow. It also got narrower and narrower until I reached the top, where I had to reach across to this sort of extended rock wall that had ledges along the bottom to make a sort of bridge over what seemed to be a very deep (if not very wide) canyon or split in the mountainside. On top of that, I had to really get right up on the thing before it tilted and the back end came down on the much wider ledge that was the path to the top of the slope. It was properly terrifying, and the idea of someone in skis trying to edge their way across in the other direction to get to the top of a ski slope that was maybe eight inches wide at its peak... Let's just say that we're well past double diamond territory and into, generously, a double-suicide rating for this ski slope. 

After that I'm at the airport -- or trying to get to it -- and I'm wandering around pulling my stuff together and (I think) also talking to a couple of people from the unnamed "us" who just escaped the pirates. 

Which is when I realize that my cell phone is still missing; the goddam pirate didn't give it back. So I end up going back to the mansion (just as another bus is pulling up with people who'll stay on the upper floors!) and down to the pirate area again. The guards remember me, so this time they're more chatty than threatening, and I make my way back into the pirate rooms. 

The guy at the electronics/booty desk agrees to help me out, and does something -- but instead of getting my phone back, other phones start flashing all over the room. Apparently he's just taken my number out of all their phones, as a favor. Nice, but not what I need. I explain that actually I need my physical hardware back, he's like, "Oh, you have to talk to the boss about that."

It turns out the pirate chief is Lizzo. 

Lizzo sort of vaguely recognizes me from earlier, and so reacts to me more like an underling who's stepping out of line than an intruder. I ask if there's anything that I can do for her, and she says no. I tell her I was hoping she'd say yes because it would be a lot easier to ask for a favor if I'd just done something to help her out; then I explain about the phone. 

She says she doesn't have it anymore, it's been sold off. I tell that she has whole pile of phones back in the treasure room, and I just need to look them over and grab mine. She gives me this reassessing look and then says, "Oh. Right. You." 

This mansion must have really been something before the pirates took over, because their entertainment room down here has a couple of doors with a keypad between them, which looks like the opening for some kind of escape room. Lizzo says, "If you can get out of the room, you can have your phone back," and punches in a code. 

Problematically, what slides open isn't a full door. It's more of a narrow slot, which presents two problems: it looks like a trap, and also I'm honestly not sure I can fit. I'm debating about what to do next when I wake up. 

Thinking about it (while I'm lying there trying to figure out if I can go back to sleep) I decide that the next section should have been that the room opens up, and once inside I just start tearing it up trying to break out; to hell with problem-solving. I've never been good at escape rooms, and Lizzo didn't tell me to solve the puzzles; she told me to escape the room. Plus, the pirates might just let me back out if they didn't want their escape room wrecked, which I'd argue constitutes an Escape. 

Not sure if the whole thing would have ended with me getting my phone back and possibly even making my flight home, or if I would have wound up joining the slightly-wacky pirate crew, but whatever. It was a long, convoluted, interesting dream and I haven't had one of those in a long time.

Now, of course, it's eleven thirty at night and I'm going to take a break and have a little food before I try to go to sleep again. Still, all things considered I do feel better rested.

Also? Somebody hire Lizzo to play a pirate queen in something, because that was awesome.