I'm married to somebody, living in a house with kids (I guess they're mine) - fairly ordinary small house, Forties, Fifties maybe, not in great repair; I think there's maybe one of the kids home, otherwise just me. Right now I'm straightening some things up, I've got some old junk out to clean up or throw out, and it's cold in here, so I go look at the thermostat. It's on the wall next to a table [like mine really is] and it's coming apart. It's not even easy to read - parts of it are hanging down. I fiddle with it some and think maybe it's gone for good; I think I can read the temperature on it and it's set okay but is it really working? I'm not sure I can read what it really is. While I'm over there I knock a box of hair combs off the table onto the floor and one of them breaks. I see it between the table and the wall, and the ornaments came off and are lying face down - one of them as I pick it up looks like a dead spider and I drop it, then I reach for another bit that's definitely a feather and I realize that it was only a butterfly made of feathers. So I pick that up, and the comb, and the rest of 'em - they're all that plastic tortoise-shell stuff. I'm also taking some old bits of things with gunk all over them out of a box to un-muck, and these things I've got now are covered with wax like somebody burned candles in them. I can pull it all out at once - turns out they're some kind of levellers for furniture. We can maybe use them. I've also got quite a lump of wax/gunk here, kind of interesting. While I'm near it, I see a shape scurrying along the wall. I just know it's a rat or something equally nasty. I throw the lump of gunk at it (after moving chairs and stuff out of the way) and I may have hit it but didn't do it any damage - it scurries further to an open door that leads into the attic. So that's where it came from. It's gone out of sight, but reappears with a baby in its mouth. Now I can see it's not a rat but a possum [however, in the dream it really didn't look like one, it looked more like a prairie dog - I just called it a possum], not so dangerous but I still don't want it running around my house, especially not depositing babies. It freezes when it sees me, and I clap and shout to scare it. It jumps and jostles the opposite door, which leads into one of the boys' rooms. This is no great help but I don't know what else to do right now. In fact, people are starting to come in now - my husband's home, several friends are coming for dinner, kids home from school. I'm feeling up now, this is fun, cares are on the back burner, I'm chatting with a girlfriend in the kitchen - small kitchen, small house, but we're comfortable. My husband is nearby, telling stories and jokes, I'm feeling very affectionate toward him but we do have our differences. He's saying something about me, that he thinks is funny, about me being incompetent or something, and I think it's not only untrue but offensive. I look over to him and say "I'm what?" and he looks like, "heh-heh, isn't she cute"; I go over and face him and he says "I was only making a joke" and I get fed up and decide to leave. I'm tired of this kind of thing, it happens too much and I'm just not going to stand for it. Maybe I'll leave for good - right now I just believe I'll go out and have a good time - find a friend, have a drink, do my own thing. By coincidence, a woman I know is just passing and I hitch a ride with her. She's on her way somewhere but doesn't mind dropping me off - maybe Barbara will be home, and I'll stay there, or Linda. While we're driving along, we chat, and I'm still trying hard to remember the name of the blonde actress who used to do everything on TV in the 60's. I keep coming up with Madelyn Rhue, but that's wrong, and another name, but the right one won't come. We drive around a building that has a few shops in it, on the street; the corner one has a stucco front and a window above the main window and the door, and there's what I take to be a plaster ornament above the main window. It's a cat, a purple and white one - not dark purple, or quite lavender, but noticeable when you look. Only it's stuck on sideways, as if the wall was the cat's floor. However, now I can see the cat is real, a live, breathing cat sitting casually on the wall like nothing was unusual. It moves, it licks its paw, just like normal. I strain out the car to peer at it, and call to my friend, you've got to see this! So she looks, and we don't know what to make of it, and we go on. We come to a sort of tiny, sad-looking laundromat next to a matching sort-of 7-11 and stop next to an open vehicle with two men in it. One of them gets out and as he passes my side, he casually reaches in and lifts out a little round purse by its shoulder strap, which has been lying on the dashboard, and it's easily reached by the very front of the window, because the window's been broken out. I'm startled, and I say "Wait! That purse, put that back!" (or words to that effect) and my friend says "What?" and I ask her if that isn't her purse (she hadn't been watching), and tell her what he did. He's gone on into the laundromat and I get out and start after him and point at the car and say something to the other man (like, "Isn't that your friend and didn't I just see him take that purse?") and he starts to back the car out while the first one runs out and down the street. I'm verbally calling out descriptions of them and the car - it's a lot like a VW Thing or some form of Jeep but I can't see what for all the numbers painted on the back. I'm not even sure I can remember the license # for all the other stuff. I run behind and grab onto the back to get a closer look, then jump off. We go into the 7-11 thing, where they've seen all this and we're going to call the police. But suddenly the first guy (darkish, maybe Mexican, with a mustache) (the other had been bigger and handsomer, Caucasian with brown hair, looked pissed off while the first one had been swaggering and smug - both wore light short-sleeved shirts, the Caucasian one's a knit polo) comes bursting into the place and now he's got a gun, a revolver. I'm pretty shaken, but I get down behind a table and pull it up in front of me. He definitely wants to shoot me, that's what he's come back for, he's real mad. I say "Do you really mean to kill me just for a little purse that probably didn't have anything in it anyway?" I'm getting a real sober feeling that I'm about to get actually shot, maybe killed, and I sure don't like it but I'm determined not to panic. I'd rather get shot deliberately, knowing what's happening, than to panic and be desperately scared too.