Need a job?

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, because it might be considered classified information. But I think the FBI is totally desperate for new employees. I say this because I personally was referred to the FBI as a possible job candidate, resulting in my being invited, along with about 200 other possible applicants, to the FBI for an "informational overview." 


I figure it doesn't really hurt to go public with this, because all of it occurred in my dream the other night.


It did not seem odd to me, in the dream, to be considering working for the FBI. It must not have seemed odd to the Hero, either, because he was there too, although he was not considering employment so he only showed up near the end.  Possibly, whoever referred me to the FBI may not have been someone looking out for the bureau's best interest. After all, I have only the vaguest notion of what goes on there, but then maybe that is exactly the kind of quality they are looking for in prospective employees. In the dream, at least.


But even in a dream the bureau was leaving nothing to chance. All of us prospects were transported to a secret location for the presentation, so we had no idea where we were or how we had gotten there. We also, it turned out, had no idea how to get back home when we were done, which presented difficulties that I shall enlarge upon later.


By some great mistake I was left alone before the presentation, and I took advantage of this opportunity to check out the building. Part of the building housed employees who wished to live onsite. I know, this perhaps should have been a clue that I was not entirely in the land of reality, but it was a very nice house -- Victorian, several antiques -- and I thought I wouldn't mind living there. I admit that it did not occur to me to inquire whether spouses could live there too.


It was finally time for the actual presentation, and our speaker, a woman, welcomed us and went over a great deal of information that I immediately forgot, because behind her were several small shops, like the kind in an airport. One of these shops sold popcorn, and I was preoccupied with wondering whether we were going to be served any. (We weren't.)


But soon I started paying attention again, because she started explaining that, like the CIA, if we worked for the bureau we would not be allowed to tell anyone where we worked, or what we did. This did not sit well with many in the audience, who were already disgruntled at not getting any popcorn. Now they were being told they'd have to basically live a lie. This group, a considerable number, got up and left.


I figured it would not be too difficult for me personally to keep my job a secret from other people, because my present job is already a mystery to most people. ("You're a book editor, huh? So you, like, add commas to books and stuff?" Yes, I have an advanced degree in Comma Apportionment and Rearrangement.)


So I stayed.


To those of us who remained, it was revealed that the specific unit of the FBI that needed agents was the "underwater division." The speaker, a woman, proceeded to show us a movie about the type of underwater investigating we would be doing, if we were accepted. I couldn't help but notice that the quality of the water shown in the movie, in which various "agents" were swimming and diving, was questionable, and did not look at all inviting. I admit, however, that the murkiness provided excellent cover for whatever the agents were supposed to be doing in it.


I decided, with some regret -- I really liked that Victorian house -- that the underwater division was not for me. Others must have also been turned off by the waterpart, because shortly after the movie the entire meeting broke up, even though she hadn't gotten to the part about compensation yet. Possibly they would have paid us in popcorn.


At some point before the end of the presentation Joe joined me, and when it was over we walked outside with everyone else. Very quickly everyone else disappeared, while we were left with the realization that we had no idea where we were, or how to get home. Clearly no one from the bureau was going to come to our assistance. Was this part of the test to see if you would make a good agent? We whipped out our cell phones to use the GPS, and --


I woke up.


Somewhere, outside an FBI building/Victorian home/popcorn store, we are still frantically trying to find our way home via GPS. If we ever did have to cover up what we did for a living, we'd have no trouble convincing others that we weren't FBI agents.