I had a dream last night.
Now, most of my dreams involve people I know in real life, although a good plurality of them involve people long ago dead but in their own time were well-known. But once in a while I have a dream involving a primitive.
I dreamed I was a congressman from Nebraska; a 100% rating with the ACU, the NRA, the right-to-life groups, beloved by both establishment Republicans and the Tea Party. The only campaign expenditures I had to make were the filing fees, despite that the Democrats spent tons of money trying to defeat me; one time, they even carpetbagged a Kennedy into Nebraska, figuring
nobody could beat a Kennedy.
I was so busy I needed a right-hand man. I hired Skippy--I'd wanted to hire Manny, but Manny was unavailable--because he impressed me with his brilliant cerebrality; he was not only the smartest person I interviewed, but the smartest person I'd ever met in my life, period.
There were two problems, though. In case one hasn't been paying attention, Skippy's far to the left of even the primitives; he makes his ancient mentor the old terrorist William Ayres look like Mohatma Gandhi, and the late Yassir Arafat look like Mother Theresa. I dunno how that happened, but if the late Idi Amin had met him, he would've found Skippy agreeable companionship.
No big deal, I figured; I could take care of the politics, while Skippy took care of everything else.
The other problem was his state of haberdash; he obviously buys his clothing by mail-order from Blair of Warren, Pennsylvania or Haband of Oakland, New Jersey; all that polyester stuff. I took care of this by hiring the big guy from Bellevue, as a wardrobe consultant for Skippy.
All went well for a while, although there seemed some discombulation in the most popular congressman representing Nebraska; a slow-but-discernible shift to the left, the far left. I kept on being re-elected, but it was apparent the constituents were getting less and less fond of my politics.
The last straw was when I submitted a bill to put the portrait of the late Pol Pot on the twenty-dollar bill, and entertained Kim Jong-un out here in the Sandhills. That was so "left" it upset even Robert Mugabe.
I got yelled at a lot, by other Republicans. Finally, I said screw it, and joined the Democrat party, because I wanted to be with the majority, not the impotent minority.
However, much to my surprise, while I squeaked through re-election despite my new party label, abruptly the Democrats were in the minority--and a tiny minority at that--and so I was still screwed.
I decided I had to return to those values and principles that'd made me a decent and civilized person in the past, and informed Skippy thusly. He arched his eyebrows, but said nothing.
- - - - - - - - - -
That evening, when I went home, as I touched the door-knob to the front door, I felt a wire that hadn't been there before, and quickly yanked back my hand. I contacted the police, who came over to investigate.
What they found was that the wire, when twisted by the door-knob, was set to detonate a bomb that would chain-react into circa 60,000 tons of dynamite, blowing me heavenward.
The cops were awed. "It took a guy smarter than Einstein, to design this," they said.
They were about ready to put out an all-points-bulletin for Skippy when one of the cats jumped on my stomach, waking me up.