I had a terrible dream last night. I was with my son Peter and we were visiting my friend Tom.
Wait a minute. I need to set the stage better, for there are important facts which are necessary for the reader to know if he or she is to understand what follows. Tom and Carrie are two of Helen’s and my closest friends. Tom is an internationally known watercolor artist and has made a good living from his work for many years. His watercolors brought us together, for I purchased the first of many several years ago and reached out to him by letter. When he came by to meet me after reading my letter, we began the process of becoming fast friends. After Helen and I subsequently got together we began seeing Tom and Carrie often, as couples who all like one another do. Later, the four of us became part of a larger group consisting of our mutual friends Jan and Ken and Bob and Estelle. Nowadays, all of us get together periodically at each others’ homes and tell the kinds of stories best friends tell one another – the sometimes embarrassing ones about self that can only be shared when comfortably among the sort of friends who laugh with, rather than at, you.
OK, that should be enough information. Back to my dream.
Peter (at least I think it’s Peter – he’s never seen in the dream, but, in the way of dream-time, I am certain it’s him) and I are at Tom and Carrie’s home. It’s not the home they now live in, but there is no question that it’s theirs. We are in their backyard and Peter and I are standing a bit away from the place where Tom is working on his car – a low slung red sports car of some kind – probably a Triumph, for I know he once owned one when he was young and fancy free. In response to something Peter asks me, I respond in a loud voice: “Well, Tom really can’t write letters very well, so I don’t think so.”
As soon as I utter this nonsense, I am appalled I’m instantly worried Tom has heard me and will take offence. The last thing I want is for Tom to believe I think him stupid. After all, he’s certainly not stupid, he’s just an artist. As these thoughts flurry through my mind, Tom turns and enters his house through its back door not having said a single word. I continue to worry as I wait for him, wondering if he heard and how he will react if he did. Peter has exited stage right, having played his entire role in this dream.
During this interval, I suddenly recall a letter Tom has written to the car dealership where he bought the little red car, complaining very effectively and humorously about something that was wrong with it when he took delivery. As soon as I recall this letter, I remember that the car is brand spanking new. The letter succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations because the dealer, overwhelmed by Tom’s urbane cleverness, promptly fixed, without charge, whatever had been wrong with the car. This is surely my way out of the dream’s dilemma. Since this is a dream, it doesn’t occur to me to make a simple apology. Instead, when Tom returns I plan to talk loudly and praisingly about his letter with Peter (I am not yet aware he’s gone) and Tom will implicitly understand that I don’t think him an idiot. The more I think about this notion, the cleverer it seems – if Tom heard me, I can remedy things without abject apology; if he didn’t, he will only hear an encomium. Life will once again be beer and skittles.
The dream continues, and a few moments later Tom comes out of his house wearing a backpack. He comes straight up to me and announces: “Me want go walk. You come?” I am horrified, for not only did Tom hear my comment, he is mortally offended. He is feigning idiocy. His words say it all. It’s too late for my plan to have good effect. I am trapped in my stupidity. I have ruined our friendship.
At this realization, I do what any self-respecting dreamer does – I wake up.
But I wake up muzzy headed and confused. Normally, I am sleeping one moment and fully awake the next, and I get out of bed and go on about my morning. But not this morning. I lie in bed for several minutes getting my bearings, and in the process of doing so the dream becomes more vivid rather than fading. I wonder what it all means. Is there some metaphysical message? Is my unconscious self trying to tell me I have been denying my friend Tom the respect he is due for the many years I’ve known him? I find no resolution, so I finally get up, perform my morning rituals and go out to the kitchen to fix coffee and eat my breakfast.
One more relevant fact. I usually awake around 4:00 and go upstairs to work on the computer, returning downstairs to make coffee around 5:30. This morning I awoke at 5:30 and proceeded directly to the kitchen to make my coffee before going upstairs. Whenever this happens, I usually don’t do so well at the routine described below.
I have a fancy coffee machine (Helen never uses it, so it’s definitely mine) and I go through a routine whenever I use it. On mornings when I wake properly, my performance of the routine is flawless; on mornings when I wake as I did this morning, I often screw it up and forget to do things in the proper order or at all. Because of the way I woke up, I am certain I will screw up this morning’s routine, but am amazed to find that I perform it flawlessly instead. Because of an uncanny ability to multitask efficiently, I finish the routine about 5 minutes faster than normal. I continue worrying about the dream’s meaning while I do so.
When I reach the computer I begin playing the game I usually play to get me back into computer mode – a game that requires a minimum of thought and allows me to enjoy my coffee before beginning work. While doing so, I daydream. I imagine the tale of the night’s dream will make good fodder for one of our group evenings. It will evoke a good laugh at my expense. I imagine Carrie’s hearty laughter. Then, in a moment of real clarity, it dawns upon me that I can augment the tale; make it even more humorous. I invent an alternate ending – an ending that doesn’t occur with me waking immediately after Tom says “Me want go walk”.
In this new, imagined ending, I remain horrified by Tom’s statement just as I was in the real dream. But instead of waking after Tom makes his announcement, I have an epiphany: Tom always speaks as cavemen do; he is talking normally, just as he always does. He never heard my remark. All is well.
This ending is surely more clever than that of the actual dream; I will get much louder laughs from the group when I tell it. My coffee goes down even more smoothly than before. I sit back, day dreaming contentedly about the anticipated laughter and happiness – only to suddenly realize that I forgot to eat my morning’s banana because I was so wrapped up in the dream’s meaning.
The laugh’s on me; there is a reason I was so ‘efficient’ at this morning’s routine – I omitted its last 5 minutes.
Well, obviously I cannot let this omission detract from a good laugh, so I begin wondering how to use this final realization to finish off a good tale. And a new tag line comes to me: all dreams about Tom need to come with a written warning. Before they begin, a blue screen needs to appear with letters as large as those on DVDs announcing that it’s a crime to copy and redistribute the DVD – that you will be sent away forever by the FBI, if you do – but the language of the warning needs to be similar to TV ads for Viagra or The Purple Pill. At last I have it. The Tom warning is:
“WARNING: Dreams containing Thomas William Jones may adversely affect your daily intake of potassium. Dream them only with care.”
I am so clever. I am satisfied. Only then do I have one additional burst of brilliance: I can write a blog post about my dreams – whether those of the morning or of the night – and have my laugh now rather than waiting for the group to get back together. I can tell the tale without the risk of forgetting to do so when the next opportunity arises.
And so I do.
My subsequent editing of this piece makes me wonder if my humor has succeeded, but what the hell: the laugh’s on me one way or another.
PS, if you want to see for yourself that Tom is anything but a caveman, please go here:
http://www.ajkollar.com/artists/artist.php?artistID=148
