Halfway through I’m at Macy’s and there’s a ton of people made up like the Neanderthals from the GEICO commercials. They stay in character, just going about their business shopping (I can’t recall any clerks who were Neanderthal-Americans), and occasionally being loud about being discriminated against in a Cro-Magnon-centric world. Although I don’t think we’re supposed to use that phrase anymore.
The phenomenon is so awesome it’s hard not to giggle constantly. I tweet that it’s happening (I used Twitter in my dream about GEICO!!), before talking to an elderly woman in a wheelchair, being pushed by a relation. They are both Neanderthals. I both play along and try to get her to break character, making a comment about picking up something with her feet — I’m not sure if she’s turning into a chimp, or I’m just stupid, or if I’m baiting her deliberately — she almost breaks character but does not.
Later my friend Jackie and I sneak into a big party on the roof of a hotel downtown… it turns out to be Tom Hanks’ birthday party, and Richard Branson is there with a cloned triceratops.
Tom Hanks is sitting with a friend at a small table while everyone comes up and wishes him happy birthday (he looks young!), and when I do, he seems to mistake me for someone else because he thinks we may have met before. Either we actually have met before and I’m fuzzy on it or I capitalize on his confusion, because I give him one of my MOO cards with the little weird images from my films on it.
LATER as I’m awake, I realize the GEICO mascots aren’t actually Neanderthals, they are early modern humans, just “cavemen.”