When it comes to sharing interesting life stories, a part of me thinks that it is a little bit cheating to retell dreams one may have had, rather than real events that have been experienced in real life.
Today’s tale lands somewhere in the grey area. First off, technically it’s not my dream. Secondly, the dream is actually part of a larger narrative and integral to the plot.
So for what it’s worth, you can rest assured that this is not yet another self-indulgent post about my dreams.1If interested, see these previous dream-centric posts: Stranger Dreams, Shotgun Wedding, I Had A Dream…Or Two, and/or Killing Them Hardly.
Also please note: all dreams described herein are relatively family-friendly, and would have been able to air on network TV without further censorship. Just to make that point clear.
*Ahem* Now, without further ado…
One morning over breakfast, back in the early years of our marriage, the Boss Lady all of a sudden got this smirk on her face, saying that she needed to tell me about this dream she had had.
In it she had found herself in the arms of another man, attracted to his irresistible animal magnetism. She said that in the dream she realized that she was a married woman, but found that she couldn’t stop kissing his succulent lips.
Most of the dream centered on her internal conflict, torn between her commitment to me and the siren’s call of this mystery man. I kind of chuckled at this, and couldn’t help but insert the skeptic’s catch-all comment: “Likely story…”
She said that after a few good rounds of lip-smacking, she rolled over in bed and started making out with…me. Turns out, I had been there the whole time, and had approved of her shenanigans! And now I was partaking in what apparently was now a little home-grown love-fest!
That revelation begged the question: what kind of loose-moraled man did she deep down think I was?!? It’s one thing to be caught up in the throes of passion; having your system bio-chemically hijacked by a cocktail of hormones and pheromones gives one at least some pretext for such actions, so I wouldn’t fault anyone for having such a dream.
But I guess her dream version of me actively seeks out and encourages such corrupting-of-souls situations.
As she told me all this (back in real life, that is), the smirk on her lips steadily grew even smirkier. Finally, she revealed the Ace hidden up her sleeve:
“…and then I finally got a good look at this other man. It was you, but with even bigger lips!”
I about fell out of my chair laughing at that point. I mean, there was so much to unpack there, right?
First, even in her dreams, she couldn’t cheat on me without being thwarted by the version of me that had seemingly crossed over from that one parallel universe where everybody’s lips are comically large.
And even if bizarro-me hadn’t been the “other man,” the real2”Real” as in the dream version of the character that corresponded to me in real life. me decided he would show up and crash the party.
Then there’s the whole topic of the lips, right?
I have big lips to begin with, so any dream–or the inevitable satirical made-for-TV movie about my life based on this blog–is already landing in the land of the absurd if my lips are portrayed as any larger than they already are.
And the best part of all this? It would have to be the inner-dialogue her subconscious most definitely had with itself as it wrote the “script” for this steamy dream–imagined here in the form of a writers’ room meeting:
“What genre should we run tonight in our favorite venue, Arthouse Dream Cinema?”
“Hmmm…let’s spice things. How about something a little risqué?”
“Oooh-la-lah, baby, I like the way we think! Should we keep it, how you say? ‘Right in the Eyes of the Lord’?”
“Nah, I was thinking some light infidelity might be a nice change. You know, keep things interesting.”
“Well, who should we have play the lead male role?”
“Dunno, who’s the sexiest hunk we can think of throughout time and history? If we could spend one romantic night with anybody, who would it be?”
“No limits–only our collective imagination, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, then, if it weren’t for the size of his lips…”
“Wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Probably, since we’re both a part of the Boss Lady’s psyche…but, yeah. I’m definitely catching your vibe.”
“Shall we say it together then?”
“Sure…on 3?”
Together: “3…2…1…The Hubby but only with bi-sm-gg-all-er lips!”
“Oh. I thought you were thinking of a version with smaller lips.”
“Hell, why not? He can be there, too.”
“Playing the ol’ ‘there’s more than one of everything‘ card, eh? So, science fiction it is…I like it!”
Together: “We’re ----- geniuses! This will be the wittiest dream ever!”
Here’s a fun bit of trivia: during that period in time we were actively involved with a local church, even going so far as regularly attending a weekly “small group” comprised entirely of other couples who had been married six years or less.
An even funner bit of trivia is that some of the church leadership thought it would be a grand idea to strong-arm me into leading the group when our original leader and his family had to move out of the area. If you know me, then you know how short-sighted this decision probably was.
Anyways, I thought that this particular dream was so hilarious that I just had to share it with the gang. And, since I was the gang leader, no one with better judgment was around to step in and stop me.
I exuberantly proceeded to regale them with the sordid tale, including the very critical plot twist there at the end. As I concluded my Fabio-worthy fantasy sequence, I was slightly disappointed when it was met with a few chuckles, but most of them were oddly nervous chuckles–especially amongst the other husbands. More noticeable was the palpable sense of relief in the room the moment I revealed that it was me.
Later the Boss Lady and I were discussing why my story hadn’t absolutely killed it with the crowd. She’s really good at picking up on subtext, and she noted that maybe it was the way I had set up the story that made all the men in particular real nervous and uncomfortable.
You see, I had thought that I would really play up the drama for this crowd, and put my own spin on the story.
But instead of using “Who’s that kissing my wife?” as the key plot element like the Boss Lady had in her original retelling, I took a slightly different angle.
Personally, I had thought it a fantastic idea to frame it as a classic whodunit, and opened with this:
“She had a dream that she was having an affair…with one of the men in our small group. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, he is in this very room with us now! Which one of you could it be?!?”
While I would have loved to have had my story-telling met with a hearty round of laughter and applause, I think I enjoyed even more the laugh I got out of realizing how comically uncomfortable I had made the other fellows. To this day I have absolutely zero regrets in the matter…
Anyways, much like the Holy Trinity, the point of the story is actually three-fold this time around: 1) for the love of God, know your audience; 2) truly, for the love of God, Church Leaders, you really need to vet your Bible study leaders better next time; and 3) for the love of your spouse, when they need a momentary escape to FantasyLand, I suggest you and your Botox twin don’t go poking around their dream like a pair of dicks.3True story: in the first draft I accidentally omitted “don’t,” leaving everybody with this terrible advice: “I suggest you…go poking around their dream like a pair of dicks.” Yeah…that kinda changes the parable…
Content created on: 19/29 February 2020 (Wednesday/Friday)
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