At the bus terminal

Elaine and I were finding our way out of a bus terminal. I was carrying two suitcases, the old-fashioned kind, one under my right arm, one in my right hand, so as to leave my other hand free. We exited at ground level and found ourselves in a small parking lot, enclosed by a ten- or twelve-foot-high grassy slope. Elaine tried to scale it and slid down, her dress now covered in mud. I told her to hold on and said I would try to find an elevator. And there was one — right by the door through which he had exited. We had overlooked it.

I pressed a button and stepped into what looked like a large, well-lit room — very large, like a museum gallery. There were four or five younger people already there. The elevator began going up, and I noticed that there were no numbers for floors. “You should invite him to the wedding,” said one woman to another. “Sorry,” I said, “I’m already married, and my wife just slid down the slope outside.” They looked away from me. I turned to an enormous man to my left, both broad and tall. “She was supposed to ask, ‘How long have you been married?’” I said. “When you tell someone you’re married, they’re supposed to ask.” He just looked at me.

When I exited the elevator, at ground level again, Elaine was waiting. Her dress had been washed clean by the rain that was now falling.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

[Possible sources: a story from Alan Alda’s Clear + Vivid podcast about Arlene Alda traveling with two small suitcases, Elaine shortening a tunic, the room-in-an-elevator in the Karloff–Lugosi movie The Raven, arguments about social protocol in Curb Your Enthusiasm, the muddy puddles of Peppa Pig.]