If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m particularly fascinated by dreams. I find that they provide an interesting–and sometimes terrifyingly honest–peek into our psyches. It’s like saying to your Innermost Self, “No, tell me how you really feel about me.”
The downside to recounting dreams to the rest of the world is that so, so much of them make sense only while you’re experiencing them; the narrative within the dream is consistent enough in the moment, but the second you wake up and and say that first detail aloud (even if just to yourself), you realize, “Hey that makes no ----- sense at all!” At which point it becomes much more of a fustercluck describing to someone else what that experience was like.
I think for this very reason I don’t share here nearly as many dreams I would really like to. I do it for the sake of you, Dear Readers. After all, haven’t you suffered enough trying to make sense of my stories that really happened?
Well, I suppose that’s enough foreplay–let me get to the dream that I’m eager to regale you with today. I was going to share this one with last week’s dream-themed post, but I ran over my self-imposed time-limit. Let’s see if I can keep it short and sweet this time around, ya?
It wasn’t but a week or two ago when I found myself in a classroom setting that seemed to be on the border between a university and a medical center. So far, this makes sense, as I have worked in such a setting for the better part of the last 15 years.
Of course I hadn’t picked up on the detail that I was the only adult in the classroom besides the teacher, though I was clearly one of the students. Actually I’m not 100% certain I was going all Billy Madison with a bunch of 8-year-olds, because I also got the distinct vibe that I wasn’t able to communicate fluently, so there’s a pretty good chance that I was in, of all things, a Spanish-speaking elementary classroom located on a medical campus. Making sense so far…
We were reading from a classic novel as a class, and as a character appeared in the story, the next student with the same gender as that character would be assigned their part for the rest of the story. I was sitting in the front row of the classroom, on the far left side save for two young Mexican school girls further to my left.
All that to say, as soon as the first male character–a young boy–had a speaking part, the orating duties fell on my shoulders. I remember having a real hard time getting through the line or two in front of me. ‘Twas but a real trip on ye ol’ Struggle Bus, indeed.
We read some more, and it wasn’t but a minute or two before my character had another line. However, this time I simply for the life of me could not read the words on the page.
So I improvised.
While my goal was to get me out of the situation with some light humor, my definitely-not-in-the-text zinger turned out to be something of an over-achiever.
I was expecting maybe just a chuckle or two from the crowd, but instead I ----- killed it.
I mean, I had everyone in tears from laughing so hard. The teacher was on the ground unable to breathe. It was ----- near a literal riot–one that lasted for a good 2-3 minutes. Mind you, that’s an eternity in comedy-land.
So though I wasn’t in it for the compliments, I gotta say, the response I got felt good. Real good. I sat there, with my eyes closed, literally basking in my own glory, letting my ego soak up every last drop.
I remember thinking to myself, “This must be what it feels like to be a comic1Or comedien/comedienne to those not in the industry. when they tell a joke that just absolutely slays the audience…I think I could get used to this.”
My thought immediately after that, though, was “I gotta tell somebody about this!”
Since the Boss Lady–bless her soul–was the first person to come to mind, it reminded me that I was married, thus confirming that indeed I was a grown-ass man, in a classroom full of kids, in a foreign land. No, nothing odd about that…
At that point, the scene segued into later that night in the same classroom, where it was just me and few other random students doing our own unrelated things.
For my part, I was obsessed with writing down my unicorn of a one-liner before it escaped me. I found myself wandering around the room in search of a pen or pencil, when I came across the desk where I had been sitting.
To my delight, I found the scrap paper that I had been doodling on when I had uttered my epic phrase. Hilariously, the first thought that crossed my mind was, “I better save this–the historians are going to want to preserve this piece of comedic history.” Yeah, I know, a bit presumptuous, but it made complete sense in that moment.
On it I found a bunch of trigonometric diagrams and sketches, and scrawled at the top, the phrase “Uncle-Uncle B.J.” I have no idea why, but I found that phrase to be utterly hilarious as well. What can I say? I was on fire that day.
But at that point, I still hadn’t written the phrase down, and I just knew I was going to hate myself forever if I somehow forgot it. While my insurance policy was to just keep repeating it over and over quietly to myself, I just couldn’t take any chances.
Right about that time I had found a pencil, and just as I was about to jot it on my collector’s edition piece of scratch paper…the power went out campus-wide. Of course it would. How timely.
I remember having the sense that I, along with the other few students, really needed to make our way to another, safer, location on campus where everybody else was. That detail doesn’t matter too much, but my guess was that they were all at a football non-Americano2I.e. “soccer”.game.
We found our way out a side door and could see some stadium-like lights off in the distance, and determined that’s where we needed to head. Unfortunately, we were completely surrounded by a maze of tennis courts.
While the other students headed off to get lost, I stayed behind, desperately trying to write down My Precious words. However, given that I was using a pencil, laying on a not-so-smooth tennis court, and had virtually no light of which to speak, I wasn’t able to get more than about a word and a half down, so I had to resort back to muttering it to myself while I tried to find my way to somewhere–anywhere–else that had light and a smooth surface.
I eventually found another building, and so I let myself in via a nondescript side door, hoping that I wouldn’t be more lost inside than I had been outside.
But as soon as the door shut behind me, the loudest, most piercing alarm I had ever heard blew out my right ear drum, as I was still slightly turned with that side towards the door.
Simultaneously, as the power came back on, a blinding light/shock wave combination utterly blasted my right side.
The only thing I could think in that moment was “nuclear explosion?” and “welp, I guess this is my death.”
However, I remained conscious as it felt like the right side of my face was being melted off, so I shielded that side with my arms as best as I could, and kind of leaned into the curiously continuous wall of energy.3Ultimately, the best waking theory I have for what happened was that I had wandered into a particle accelerator lab, and I happened to be right in the path of the particle beam as it unexpectedly turned back on with the power. But it was never revealed in my dream what had happened, so I’m just guessing here.
This went on for about a minute, the whole while I kept thinking “Am I dead yet? No? How am I still alive? Okay…now am I dead? What? Not yet? Dear lord put me out of my misery already.”
Next thing I remember is opening my eyes to find that, no, I was not in heaven nor hell, but rather in (what I presumed to be) a burn victims’ ward of a hospital.
Two nurse-type ladies were with me and saw that I had came to, but continued to discuss me in the third person. I soon realized that one of them didn’t have any legs, so I wonder if they were not nurses, but rather victims of the unidentified blast as well.
One of them said, “Well, no, he sure isn’t dead, but we’ll see yet if he can handle being like this the rest of this life.”
Though I didn’t have a mirror, it become clear to me real quickly that I had suffered third-degree burns to my body, but especially to my head and face.
As I went to make a comment to one of them, much to my horror I discovered that my lips had been melted off, and I would never be able to speak again.
Noooooooo! The world must know of my turn as the Wittiest Man-child in the World!
I tried desperately speaking, whispering, grunting–anything–but I had been rendered a completely ineffective communicator. I’m not clear on this point, but I’m thinking the fingers on each of my hands must have been melded together, because you would think I would at least be able to write it down, right?
The remainder of the dream was mostly a Rocky-style montage of me going through vocal physical therapy, trying to regain my ability to speak. I was on a mission: nothing was going to stop me from telling me somebody how funny I had been that one time.
I don’t ever remember fully gaining the ability to speak. However, right before I awoke, the last scene involved me walking to some sort of rally with a group of prep-school teen-aged boys. The last thing I remember is approaching them, hell-bent on telling them the Wittiest Quip in the World. I just knew they were going to appreciate it.
As I neared them, I opened what used to be where my lips were, but before I could moan my line, I saw fear flash across their faces.
Oh, right. I forgot. I look like my face has bent by the flames of hell…
And that’s where the dream ended. It’s perhaps the most unfulfilled I have ever felt after awakening from a dream.
However, thanks to repeating it to myself over and over, I could remember what the line was, and could tell people in the real world!
Before I could forget, I turned to my phone and opened up my Notes app, where I furiously tapped out those words which would change the course of comedy forever:
Behold World, I have created the first-ever Dick(ens) joke.4Seriously, though, Dream B.J.?
Yeah, anyways, still not seeing how this could fail, I tried that out on the Boss Lady as soon as I got the chance…
Turns out, it wasn’t quite as funny in real life. Go figure.
It was definitely a bummer to realize that I may not have come up with the One Joke to Kill Them All after all…
But, hey, look on the bright side: at least I still got my big, beautiful lips, right?
Content created on: 29 January & 1 February 2020 (Wednesday/Saturday)
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