It was a perfect late summer night for sleeping. As of late it hasn’t been the case with too much heat and soggy humidity to find comfort and peace perchance to dream. But last night was just right for a fan in the window to blow a cool breeze across the bed and for once the stupid neighbor wasn’t burning nuclear waste or whatever it is he incinerates in his 50 gallon tin drum stink machine.
A good night’s sleep is sometimes hard to find. The cares and worries of the day, the aches and pains of life and other distractions can lead to short slumber for me. Worse yet is the two or three hour snooze followed by hours of wakefulness that won’t be denied making the next day a gritty half-awake stumble fest. But the planets aligned and last night I slept the deep slumber of the right and just.
Dreaming is a great pleasure of mine. Often I can’t remember exactly what the dream was all about and sometimes I can’t for the life of me can’t figure out what it meant. Strange snips of real life intertwined with hallucinated bits of scary movies or books I have read dominate my late night closed eyed entertainment. Many of these columns are written in the half-light between waking and dreaming.
I have discovered over the years that my mind will do anything to keep me dreaming and sleeping. Alarm clocks warning will be turned into a school bell and the dream will tell me that class has been let out in my head instead of getting me up and out of bed.
Last night the dream was of coffee. I gave up drinking the stuff in any quantity years ago in an effort to promote the sleep I crave but I still enjoy the wonderful smell of fresh brewed pot of java. Like many things in life it smells far better than it tastes but that wonderful aroma was in my nostrils and the dream was that I was about to enjoy a perfect cup of Columbia’s best . It was so strong and fragrant in this dream of mine that I could just about taste it.
I awoke for some reason, possibly because of the caffeinated dream and quickly discovered the smell was not something I would want with bacon and eggs. Instead the scent of my dream was the odor of Mr. Pepe Le Pew. How my slumbering mind turned the stench of a skunk into a mouthwatering morning beverage I will never know. I will also never know why Mr. or Mrs. Skunk decided to unload under my bedroom window.  Maybe it couldn’t sleep.
