On the Alberta/Montana Border: Wondering About Alice

Friday, September 18, 2026

Wondering About Alice

Now, before I begin, there are a couple of things I want to say…

If Alice in Wonderland was simply a story that little Alice made up, well and good.

I may have made up a few of those in my day.

Ahem…

But if it’s a dream, I have to say that I’ve had a few kookie dreams in my time.

But this one tops them all as the most confusing dream ever!

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Alice and her sister were drowsing on the riverbank near their home on a hot summer afternoon.

I have it on the best authority that all of their chores were done and they had permission to be there and weren’t simply ‘hiding out’.

Suddenly a white rabbit hopped past moaning something about being late and muttering, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

Now, at first, Alice simply dismissed him.

Because we all know white rabbits are well known for their complaints and penchant for worrying.

Ahem…

It wasn’t until Alice noticed said rabbit was neatly dressed in waistcoat and carrying a pocketwatch that she perked up.

I mean, everyone knows rabbits almost always wear sweaters and sport wristwatches.

Sheesh.

But follow, Alice did and soon found herself climbing into the rabbit’s burrow behind him and falling down a long, strange shaft where time lost all reality.

Kind of like when one is sitting through an interminable meeting.

But I digress…

Alice ended up in another tunnel. This one filled with doors.

Okay, I have had that dream…

She found a little, glass table with a key.

And, of course it fit the smallest door – which she couldn’t possibly squeeze through.

She found a bottle of liquid that said, ‘Drink Me!’

Raise your hands, anyone who says that drinking this might be…oh, I don’t know…dangerous?

Alice did investigate it for signs of poison. Which, of course would be obvious.

And finding none, drank it.

Then shrank. (Shrinked?) You know, the old adage: Drink to shrink!

No? Well, it is allegorical…

She shrank to just the right size to pass through the door, then discovered that she left the key up on the table. And had no way to get it.

Unless she ate some of the cake under the table in a box labelled, ‘Eat Me!’

Huh. Imagine that.

She did eat the cake and grew to monstrous size.

Then was so frustrated, she cried.

Monstrous tears.

The white rabbit appeared with lovely gloves and carrying a fan, which he dropped when she asked him for help and with which Alice fanned herself and shrank – again.

You know, this makes me think of diets I’ve been on. Grow. Then shrink. Then grow.

Sigh.

There was some fracas with Alice and other animals being washed along in the pool of her tears, then staging a caucus race to dry out, etc.

And Alice, becoming increasingly confused after witnessing a Duchess, who’s baby became a pig and a cook with no sense of either proper culinary technique or decorum, ended up, once again following a road leading to nowhere.

What followed is the most important information in the story, supplied by the Duchess’ strange, floating cat who possessed an even stranger, floating grin.

Alice asked this creature where she should go, and was told:

‘Where you go is completely dependant upon what path you choose. If you don’t care where you go, it doesn’t matter which path you take!’

By this point, I know which path I’d like to take – right into a different story!

But Alice pluckily carried on and discovered a giant ‘eat-one-side-and-grow-eat-the-other-side-and-shrink’ mushroom, topped by a hookah-smoking caterpillar.

Now this begs the whole ‘Is smoking bad for caterpillars and other assorted bugs?’ question, but Alice ignored that, preferring instead, to speak to the caterpillar which brought up, surprisingly, the question of ‘Who are we, really?’

Alice wandered off and took an uninvited seat at a garden tea party, where the only participants were a March Hare, a Mad Hatter and a very sleepy dormouse.

Just the people I’d invite to a party…

What followed was a very confused conversation revolving through such topics as bad manners, the gender of Time, silly riddles, and goofy rhymes.

At which point, Alice escaped, only to find she had wandered into the original garden she glimpsed at the beginning of her adventures.

This time, however, she was able to witness the goings-on in said garden, beginning with strange horticultural practices, wending through rather brutal Royal decrees, an unwinnable croquet game played with flamingo mallets and hedgehog balls and ending with the trial of the century featuring a heretofore unseen knave accused of stealing the queen’s tarts – and where nearly everyone is ordered executed.

But Alice, grown tall once more, simply scattered the card-like folk of the kingdom and

found herself once again sitting on the riverbank with her sister close by.

Whew.

What a story!

The ‘big windies’ I told my family when I was young pale by comparison.

Think of the trouble I could have ~~gotten into~~ avoided.