...in which I have this crazy dream.
So last night I stayed sober, which Sunday always used to be a big drinking night for me but these days I have to be at work sometime between 8-9 on Mondays so I’ve been keeping dry and going to bed early.
It’s good for me to get at least a little bit drunk before bed because 1) I sleep better and 2) it dulls down my dreams. I have these phenomenal, vivid, occasionally disturbing dreams, but if I drink before bed the part of my brain that generates them shuts down or something.
Anyways, last night, no drinks before bed. And I had this dream that I was in a town I’d never seen before and had found a likely-looking bar. I think I’d gone up North to see Heather and was supposed to be meeting her in the bar, only she got held up and I got there first. So I sat down at the bar and the bartender asked what I wanted to drink. And, you know, I just drew an absolute blank.
“I can see that you’re a bit lost, little brother,” he said. “You’re a bit troubled in your mind. I’ll make you a deal: you tell me your story and I’ll figure out what you need to drink.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna be comfortable telling you my story. It’s kinda personal, and kinda strange, and I don’t know you.”
“Hey, I’m a bartender. That’s what I’m here for. Come on, open up; it’s woman trouble, isn’t it?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen and heard it all, little brother. Come on, give us the story.”
So I told him how I’d fallen in love with this phenomenally beautiful woman. See, I was a reporter for a major paper, only my boss had fired me because I kept writing these sweet little human interest stories and he wanted me to be a hard-hitting investigative journalist. So, in order to save my job, I had set off on the trail of this ring of jewel thieves that had recently stolen a priceless diamond necklace from a world-famous fashion designer. So, since I didn’t know where else to start, I went to see this designer. And I fell in love with her immediately, because she was tough and lovely and smart and uninhibited. But it turned out that she was lying to me; the woman I had met was the designer’s secretary, and was only posing as the designer to impress me ‘cause she kinda dug me. Then it turned out that she was an international jewel thief, only she really wasn’t. It was the brother of the real designer she was pretending to be that was in fact the jewel thief, and was framing the beautiful receptionist. And I’d figured it all out, but I couldn’t find her because she was embarrassed about pretending to be the fashion designer. And no one believed me, because I was suspected of being in on the thefts.
“She thinks I loved her because she was rich and famous, but I didn’t. I just fell in love with her, with who she really is, and it doesn’t make any difference to me whether she’s a world-famous fashion designer or a receptionist, but now I can’t find her to tell her that. It doesn’t help, of course, that she’s being hunted by Interpol.”
“Wow,” said the bartender. “You got me. I never heard that one before.”
“Oh, you haven’t heard the strangest part.”
“It gets stranger than that?”
“Yeah. This woman...she’s a...well, she’s a PIG.”
“Well, you know, looks aren’t really that important...”
“No no no, I mean, like, a real pig. With a snout and a curly tail and everything.” There was a long silence. “So, what do you recommend as a drink for that?”
“Jesus, little brother, I really don’t know.”
“Tell you what...do you have Glenlivet?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Okay. Rocks, please. Better make it a double.”
“I can dig that.”
For those of you who led deprived childhoods, by the way, that was The Great Muppet Caper from Kermit the Frog’s perspective, and what it was doing in my head last night, I have no idea.