Tasty Burger

Monday night

I was driving to an appointment and I was late. It had already been a hectic day; both my brother Andrew and I were having trouble with our automobiles, so we were sharing a rental car. I'd dropped him off wherever he needed to be, and now I was racing toward the home of a millionaire who had hired me to make a motivational speech to the Beef Council. I hadn't had time to prepare anything, so I was screwed.

I finally arrived at my destination, in a rather disheveled state. My host opened the door, and he didn't seem very happy. I said, "Do I have time to grab a shower?" He said, "No. They [the guests] are downstairs, waiting!" I said, "I'll be there in 10 minutes," and ran upstairs, thinking that maybe I could score a deodorant stick or something.

In the meantime, my mind raced. What would I say to these people? I thought I'd begin with, "How many of you folks coach high school football in your spare time? Let's see those hands. Now, what do you say to those kids the night before the big game? 'Let's have some pretzels?' No! They want meat! After that, maybe I could get away with asking everybody to talk about the best burger they ever had. Maybe I could escape with that.

Eventually I got to the third floor. I'd been to the house before, so I knew where the private bath was. As I got to the top of the landing, I was taken aback by a new sight; the owner's ditzy socialite wife had gotten somebody to paint a gaudy, flamboyant peacock on the bathroom door, in vibrant shades of blue and green. The feathers spread out for several feet of wall space in the hallway, on either side of the door.

*****

This dream is a strange mix of actions and conversations at work yesterday. Last night, when I was preparing to go home, I overheard my boss talking about her son's high school football game. She said it was sad that the parents knew more than the coach about how to use the clock and time outs in the last few minutes of a game. Also, I bought a bag of pretzels from a vending machine yesterday afternoon. I thought it was strange enough that those two references were incorporated in this dream, but when I mentioned it to one of our sales reps this morning, she said, "Oh, we were talking about the Beef Council yesterday. We're thinking about pitching something to them. You must have heard us over the wall of the cubicle." I had no idea.