Wading in the Velvet Sea

Anyways, I’m asleep, and in my dream, this spaceship lands just outside my apartment. Just parks on the street. It parks, however, on the side of the street that has the even-numbered houses, which everyone knows is illegal in my town. We don’t quite know WHY it’s illegal, but the recent spate of tickets in my neighborhood certainly indicates that my town’s finally gotten serious about the statues that…are conveniently written out in small font on a random section of their nearly impenetrable website. I could be wrong, but I believe the top of the home page says, “Best viewed with CompuServe!”, so there’s your context. But back to the spacecraft.

It’s not big and shiny like you see in most science-fiction. It’s more “Battlestar Galactica”-gritty, which makes sense, since I’ve had “Battlestar” on the brain. More specifically, I’ve had Katee Sackhoff on the brain, and even more specifically, the shot I think I saw of her butt on last week’s episode, which once again has little to do with my dream, but bear with me, because man oh man, sweet shot, let me tell you…she’s definitely on the short list of “Blondes I’d Seriously Consider Licking”. Even if the possibility exists only in my head, just like this spaceship. Aha! There’s the connection. And by “connection” I mean “excuse I can use later lest my woman beat me with a turkey baster”.

So the aliens knock on my door, and they don’t look like Katee Sackhoff. They look more like Yakov Smirnoff, so, serious downgrade there. They ring my bell, but I know it’s them, so I don’t answer the door. Not very stealthy, these aliens. They could at least turn the engine of their spacecraft off, honestly. Or pretend to be the UPS guy. But I know it couldn’t be the UPS guy, because I’m home, and the UPS guy only comes the nanosecond I’ve turned off my street to deliver a “Sorry You Weren’t Here—I’m Just Gonna Go Ahead and Ship This Important Parcel to Cuba for Shits and Giggles”, and I come home wondering about the intrinsic links between feces and light mirth that we as a society seem to implicitly accept.

I get sick of them consistently ringing the doorbell, so I go downstairs and open the door. They there are, just sorta chillin’ out. Before they can speak, I ask them, “Do you think the Smirnoff company gets royalties off Yakov’s act? Can they sue for infringement? Does he awful comedy make people want to buy, say, Grey Goose instead? If I went on the road as Ryan Bacardi, could I make money? I want to know these things!” By this point, half of the aliens have left and gone back to the ship. I’ve discovered a causal relationship over the years between “me ranting about extremely important topics” and “people gradually walking away”. Don’t know why this is the case. I feel that this, like most things I say, are vital and important. Not my fault people can’t handle my truth.

When I’m done, the two remaining aliens take out their earplugs and say, “Whew, you done now? We told them, after visiting Robin Williams, that these would come in handy. But Tammy and Tony, they insisted no one could talk as much about absolutely nothing as him. Thanks for proving us wrong. Mind if we come in? We’re totally parched. Hope you have a Brita.”

I get them some water, tell them to get their damn tentacles off my coffee table, and ask what they want. “Well, we need your girlfriend,” they say. Eeek. “You ain’t gonna anal probe her, damnit! I won’t stand for it!” I reply. “Um, ew,” says Theo, “Not that kind of alien. Gosh.” I apologize for my alienism, and ask what it is they do want. “We need her advice on some interior design work.”

They explain to me that they’ve been contracted to do some “outside the box” thinking on this building in Dubai, and show me the plans. Apparently, they’d dug themselves into a hole. “We wanted to create a modernist, urban-chic design, with a touch of Frank Lloyd Wright tossed in to give it that certain ‘joy de vivre’,” Tina said, “But it just ended up looking like a stereotypical holding cell for millions of humans to be drugged, incarcerated, and stripped of their biochemical electrical impulses to feed and sustain our kind for centuries to come.” I tell them that I hadn’t thought of that, after which Theo looked at Tina and exclaimed, “Idiot!”

So there I am, looking at architectural floorplans designed by aliens, one of whom apparently learned to speak English by watching “Napoleon Dynamite”. And, as per usual in a dream, all of this seemed perfectly normal and legitimate. Never a thought of, “Boy, this is strange and unusual. Perchance I am in a dream state now?” Never. I’m trying to get them out of the house before The Girl arrives, because 1) I’ve learned that once you start on her interior design, you best have not made plans for the night, and I know I have an episode of “Smallville” waiting for me later on, and 2) they might see her, think, “Damn her booty so fine”, and then remember my anal probing idea, and yea, it’s bad news either way.

So I tell them, “Look, I know what she’ll say, so don’t worry about waiting around. See these walls in here? Provence cream. Write it down. Have them mix it at Home Depot. See that hutch over there? Find a bunch of vases and bowls, and put them inside similar hutches in your units. MAKE SURE THESE ARE NEVER USED. God forbid you put flowers in one of these vases, or use of these bowls for a salad when you’re in a pinch, dishwise. Thirdly, as you’re doing the design work, make sure to continually mutter, ‘I have a vision’ to no one in particular. The repetition will eventually convince your clients that the end result is what you had in mind all along. Aaaaand you’re done. Buh-bye!”

They seemed skeptical of my plans, but I launched into a monologue about my theory on the relationship between the Fitzpatricks and Woody Goodman on “Veronica Mars”, and they suddenly remembered that they had to go to that thing at that place, and boy they were sorry they had to go so soon, and off they went.

***

See, this is why I never nap. My subconcious is way too weird a place to spend any more time than necessary.