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Yesterday morning’s dream:

Kam and I were walking on the Google campus, and we walked past the giant-coin swings. (Which don’t exist in real life.)

There was a playground-ish area, and a swingset-like structure, but two of the swings were a giant penny and a giant nickel, both maybe 15 or 20 feet across, both lying flat a couple of feet off the ground, supported by chains from above on maybe four sides. (Like a tire swing of the sort where the tire is lying parallel to the ground.) You could stand on one and make it swing back and forth a little. It was both a fun thing to do and a piece of art. (I think even in the dream I assumed that the idea of the giant coins came from the giant penny in the Batcave in old Batman comics.)

As we walked past the giant coins, a middle-aged white man rushed up to them. He approached a younger white man who was standing nearby. The older guy explained that his brother had made these artworks (the giant coins), and that they were only on loan to Google, and that he and his brother were scheduled to take the coins away the next day, but he happened to have some time this evening and figured he might as well stop by and pick them up tonight. Could the younger guy help dismantle the art and move the giant coins to the older guy’s car?

I got suspicious. It seemed possible that this was legit, but also possible that the older guy was trying to steal the art.

(At this point, various other things happened, but they weren’t particularly relevant to the giant-coin storyline. Among other things, Kam left, and I spent some time getting more and more frustrated inside a nearby Google building—trying to find the game room that was listed on signs, being annoyed by loud music playing over the PA system, etc. I later left that building.)

Eventually, I decided that I should call Security and let them know about the possible art theft in progress.

But I couldn't get my phone to bring up Security’s phone number. It kept showing me maps and things instead.

So I went to a nearby Google building. It was open, but people had to wait in lines to get in, because of coronavirus. (I think this was the first time that my dreams have indicated that coronavirus existed. I think it was a sort of grudging admission on the part of my subconscious, in that the only effect of the virus in the dream was that the powers-that-be were limiting the number of people who could be in the building at one time. My subconscious stole this idea from my real-life grocery store.)

I didn’t want to wait in line, so I went and did other things for a while. But eventually the lines got smaller and I went and stood in a very short one. The friendly person in charge of that line soon let me go to the front of the building.

But at the front of building, the cheerful young white woman inside the door didn’t want to let me in without a good reason. She opened an odd half-height glass door, and we both squatted down to talk through it, me outside and her inside.

I tried to explain that I wanted to talk with Security about the giant coins possibly being stolen.

She brightened and told me to wait a minute. She went away, and soon returned with a red plastic 3-ring binder, which she cheerfully handed to me, clearly expecting that this would solve my problem. She closed the door and went away.

I opened the binder. It contained dozens of photocopies of news articles about comics. There was nothing useful to me in it.

I looked at the door, and now there was a cheerful young white man guarding it. (He was still inside, I was still outside.)

I tried to explain to him. He seemed to feel that my situation was funny.

I was pleading by now. I said that I just needed a one-minute conversation with a security person. He said, well there's one way you could do that: you could volunteer to take my place guarding the door here. Then he started muttering to himself: “Let me see, $40, plus, front-row seats, …” I’m not sure what that was about; maybe the cost of the bribe I would have to give him to take his place?

Meanwhile, the woman guard came back; she was outside the building now. I told her that the binder didn’t have the info I needed in it. She worriedly said she was sure there was an article in there about the coins, and she took the binder and started looking through it for such an article.

I said to the man that all I needed was the phone number for Security. I had had the number for years, but my phone was acting up.

He smiled and got out a piece of paper and began to write. I relaxed as he wrote a numeral—but then I saw what he wrote next: a square root sign. He was giving me the phone number in the form of a math problem.

I yelled, “Can't you just be helpful?!?” And then I woke up.

…So apparently my customer service demon is working part-time in my dreams now.