My Favorite 2019 Annual Meeting Stress Dream

I leave tomorrow for Denver and ACHA 2019. This will be my fifth annual meeting with ACHA, and this year has been absolutely bat shit crazy. We’ve had just anomaly after anomaly happen to us in the last month; including the printer deciding not to work for a full week before the truck. Like that level on nonsense. It was maddening.

I always have stress dreams about the meeting. They usually are pretty ridiculous and not worth mentioning, but this year I had one that had a distinctly Georgian twist. It woke me up in a cold sweat at 5:30 a.m. and now makes me laugh so hard my sides hurt. I thought I’d share with you before the chaos of international travel happens. Enjoy.

So, there are a few things you must know before I start this story: 1) Sean is also going to the U.S. this week, but he’s flying on Monday. 2) Tbilisi has one airport, one terminal, and it’s quite small. 3) I’ve promised my department and my friends who I’ll see after the meeting that I’d bring some Georgian wine for them to try. It’s been a significant part of my lead up to leaving: make sure you bring wine. DO NOT FORGET THE WINE.

I don’t often remember my dreams, and when I do, I tend to drop in somewhere in the middle. We open with Sean and I already boarded and settled on the plane. For some reason, the seats on this particular Lufthansa craft are not your typical airline seats. Instead, they are individual royal blue couches. Sean and I were making small talk about how odd the seats were and how old the plane was but “don’t you remember this is the same plane we were on when we flew here last summer? It’s fine!”

As we talked, the plane was…driving…well…I guess taxing…through Old Tbilisi. You know the part of town that looks like this:

We were told we had to drive to the other airport to pick up the rest of the passengers. As we were driving around, the flight attendants were serving wine…and it hit me.

I FORGOT TO PICK UP WINE FOR MY OFFICE AND FRIENDS!!!!!!

In a panic, I started trying to come up with solutions. Maybe I could get off the plane as we slowly drove around Old Tbilisi. That would be fine, right? I’ll just meet up at the other airport. It’s fine. Or, maybe I could convince the airline to sell me four bottles of Saperavi? It wouldn’t be great, but it’s not like I could get Georgian wine in German duty-free, and I wouldn’t suffer the soul-crushing shame of forgetting to pick up wine for my friends and co-workers.

And then I woke up.

Yesterday I went to two stores and bought nine bottles of wine. Currently, the two bottles I’m bringing are securely packed in my suitcase. I have yet to pack my toothbrush, shoes, computer, and camera, but you better believe those bottles are not moving for ANY reason.