Part 1: Buying beer becomes a confidence game

I went to the grocery store again today. I know, I go there almost all the
time so you might have hard time to believe these stories are true. Anyway,
today I just went to get a few items that will get me through today. I
noticed how buying beer can result in funny situations. Buying beer is
not anything difficult if you're allowed to buy it. You just take the cans
or bottles you want and then just go and pay for them. But if you know
you shouldn't be allowed to buy beer, then the thing seems to be different.
There are basically two reasons when this should happen: 1) You're under 18
2) You're drunk already.

In both cases, buying beer when you're not allowed turns into a funny
confidence game. You can clearly see how the people belonging to either
groups attempt to change their behaviour so that the cashier wouldn't ask
any questions. In scenario 1 (Under 18), the young people always try to
act confidently. They can be loud, they remember to say hello, they might
engage in random discussions just so it would seem that buying beer is
just a casual thing in the middle of their interesting life. When in
reality it is only about that beer. In scenario 2 (too drunk), there's
usually an elderly person who moves very slowly, making sure that he
doesn't stumble, doesn't mumble or do anything which could be
interpreted as if he was drunk. When in fact, he of course is. Usually
these elderly people could just walk out with their beer without even
paying because they are so concentrated and move without a sound. The
only reason why they can't get beer is that they stop at the cashier to
pay. In both of these scenarios, the change of behaviour makes them
stand out and they're left without beer.

Part 2: Don't look behind now, but..

This is one of those sentences you often hear. Some people hear them in real
life, and I hear them when I watch tv shows. Anyway, usually it happens
when someone is sitting on a table, eating something and then a person
has a friend who says "Don't look behind now, but there's a girl looking
at you."

Alright. Let's get into this. Let's pretend there's a woman who is sitting
behind you and she is looking at you. Now, why can't you look? What is so
bad that is going to happen if you look? I've been thinking various reasons
why your friend or the person on tv would tell you not to look, but I'm
not exactly sure about the reason. I'm going to discuss a few possible
reasons why not to look and you can perhaps help me figure this out since
I have no clue.

Is it possible that the person who is looking at you is ugly? That might
make sense. Your friend wants to tell you that there's a woman looking at
you, but she is so ugly that she's not sweet to the eye. Or what about
vice versa? YOU might be so ugly that you shouldn't look behind because
then the person who is looking at you would see your face and it would
severely damage your chances. Maybe your friend means that you said get
a paper back to wear over your head before you go introduce yourself.
One possibility is that the woman looking at you is a hitman, or a hitwoman
in this case. She needs to see your face to be sure that you are the
target that she is about to whack. Thus, your friend's advice of not
looking behind might actually be very good.

Of course these might be a little bit farfetched, but I got to share
them with you. Maybe the woman looking at you is some Greek mythological
creature and if you would look behind you, you would turn into stone. Of
course this wouldn't explain why your friend has seen her and didn't turn
to stone so I think we can skip this option.

Keep in mind that if you're a professional driver, there's still one
that might apply to you. The woman might be looking for a new limousine
driver and she isn't interesting in seeing your face because she always
sits at the back of the limo and is accustomed to seeing the back of the
limo driver's head. Also she might respect that the driver she hires
would always have his eyes at the front where the road is. By turning
your head back might make her think that this wouldn't be a suitable
limo driver because he would turn his head back to look at her.

In any case, even if you don't know the reason. If your friend tells you
not to look, you shouldn't. I'm sure your friend has a really good
reason.

Part 3: Volleyball dreams

Dreams are funny. You never know how they start or what they're about.
You might also have multiple different dreams that are not connected
to other part of the dream. What sometimes makes me wonder why is that
the dream can be crazy, but you think it just makes perfect sense. What
happens when you sleep that makes you think that you cannot tell imagination
from the truth.

Anyway, my dream started with me playing volleyball. This volleyball
happened to be an all-girl volleyball team, but for some reason I was
playing there as well. As the game progressed, the volleyball field
started to change. First it was a normal volleybal field, but a few
minutes later it had turned so much that the net had disappeared and
there was a rubber wall, kind of similar material they have at the
bouncy castles of amusement parks. We were still playing volleyball
but now we couldn't see our opponent at all. The objective was still
the same to get the ball over the wall. Playing was more difficult
because the ball kept coming back from random places because you
couldn't see at all what was happening on the other side. During
time it became even harder, because for some reason they changed
the balls into other objects that really cannot be used to play
volleyballs. They started using books, chairs and even metal pieces
and we just kept on trying to get them over the wall. Even when
one of the girls kept a door open and I was supposed to throw
a pizza slice through it to the other side of the field, I didn't
have any trouble believing this is reality and not a dream. I
tried throwing a pizza slice three times but I always hit the damn
door so the coach replaced me with some girl who was much better
than I was.

I was frustrated that I was taken out so I went with some teammate at
her place to discuss the game. She thought I was probably
going to be dropped out of the team because I wasn't that
good. She on the other hand was. She was playing some strange
volleyball game on her Playstation 3 that looked like there
was a grassy football field and a volleyball field in the
middle of the football field. The game itself happened on the
whole football field and you could kick the ball or hit the
ball with your hands. I asked her what kind of volleyball
game it was supposed to be, and she said that it's really
just FIFA, but she had used some cheat codes which allows
you to hit the ball with your hands and it puts the volleyball
net in there. I told her "That makes sense. For a moment I
thought I was crazy."

However, this made me optimistic. It seems I don't believe
everything in my dreams. Volleyball game that introduces a
football field doesn't make sense, but a football game that
introduces a volleyball field - makes perfect sense. Obviously
this is where I draw the line when I'm asleep!