I Had A Dream ...

 ... Recently.

I was in a bar - it looked a lot like my favorite bar in the world, the bar in The Galley on Lopez Island.

It was an odd dream.

One odd thing - dreams always being replete with odd and amorphizing things - was that Jeff was bartender; Jeff is the the owner, so having him tend bar in my dream was a sort of ethereal honor to something, maybe me?

But odder still, The Galley is defunct, gone for a couple of years, now a roadside monument to time and tide.

But having Jeff in my dream was a real upper.

He and I were talking about donnie the dildo and laughing about how donnie had almost overturned the 2020 election.

That in itself was dream-odd; neither of us outside of a dream would have been laughing about a nearly successful overthrow of our Country.

But we were laughing and paying attention to one another and our cause de gayety.

So we hadn't noticed that another guy had come in and sat down at the bar.

Jeff and I were the only people in the bar until then.

"Any way to get a drink in this dive"?

Jeff and I winced.

"Shitheads usually have to wait their turn" Jeff retorted without taking a breath.

(That also was dream-odd; Jeff is always the gentleman's gentleman.)

"I aint no shithead; I'm from West Virginia".

"And that makes me a Montagnard".

Remembering the French Revolution (I told you, this was an odd dream) I composed a retort, snappy, I thought. 

"You must be one of the radical Jacobin deputies in the National Convention during the French Revolution, noted for their democratic outlook".

He just looked at me.

"Can I get a drink"?

I stared into my half gone Tanqueray martini with olives in a stemless martini glass and hoped that Mr. Montagnard would leave me alone.

But he wouldn't.

And he didn't.

So I drained the other half of the martini and ordered another.

"Speaking of democratic outlook, I sure am glad that my senator in Washington is Joe Manchin".

Feeling like a trout rising to a well presented dry fly on the stream, I nonetheless replied.

"Why is that"?

"Because he has saved us Montagnards from inflation and budget deficits; I just saw on Fox that inflation is 6%; Ol' Joe says that if we pass Build Back Better, inflation will be out of control; and he says that Build Back Better will put the deficit out of control; he says that we can't afford two trillion dollars for poor people".

I stared into my newly poured martini.

Here's where the dream gets odd; I would normally have drained my glass, ordered another and contemplated "fish and chips or French dip?".

But instead I said "do you have any kids"?

"Yeah".

"Have you been getting the child tax credit advance monthly payment"?

"Yeah".

"How many"?

"Three".

"So you get some money for your kids; how much for each"?

"$250 for two and $300 for one".

"So $850 a month"?

"I guess".

"How much do you spend on food each month"?

"Maybe $350".

How much do you spend on gasoline each month"?

"For sure $400; I've got a Ram 500 and I drive 100 miles a day for my job, so gas is a lot".

"So $750 a month for food and gas"?

"Yeah".

"What do you see as the inflation rate"?

"Really high - 6 or 7 percent".

"That's a bitch".

"You got it man".

"Let's say that inflation with Build Back Better goes to ten percent; that would mean that your $750 a month food and gas bill would go to $825, $75 more".

"Yeah, that puts me under; Ol' Joe Manchin is saving me".

"Yeah".

"But Ol' Joe is taking away your $850 a month".

"WHAT"?

"The child tax rebate expires 15 January 2022 if Build Back Better isn't passed".

"So you end up $775 in the hole".

"And, by the way, Ol' Joe is lying about two trillion; it's only two hundred billion a year; Ol' Joe just voted for seven hundred and sixty eight billion for one year for corporate welfare for the military industrial complex; that's almost eight trillion over ten years; but who's counting"?

"And he's lying about Build Back Better not being paid for; it's paid for by an increase (in many cases making a person or entity actually pay taxes for the first time) in taxes on rich people and corporations".

At that point in my dream things wobbled off to my labyrinth dream and I don't remember much about that.