Dave and Adina (my future brother-in-law and my sister), mom and dad, and Lisa (my fiance) and myself go to meet our video-ographer for our upcoming weddings. Nice guy. He shows us examples of his work, we discuss pricing, etc... Everything went swimmingly. Then, after we made a deal and shook hands, we all got up to leave. On the way out, the video-ographer's dog runs into the living room (the man runs his business out of an office in his home), and bursts into the most playful and energetic prancing and rolling I'd ever seen in a dog. It was an old, yet a surprisingly active and spry golden retriever. Buck was its name, and he did his best to play with each and every person in the room. Everyone petted him, scratched his belly, and made him fetch a couple of his toys. Then, in digging in my pocket I found a couple quarters. I pulled one out, and, as if there really wasn't anything odd or weird about it, I fed it to the dog. The dog went nuts, just like a cat does with catnip. The dog reacted so happily, it was as if I was giving it something it had been denied for quite some time. The owners grabbed the dog's collar and pulled him away from me, "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" "I'm feeding the dog some quarters. What? Did you already feed him quarters today?" They look at me in horror as I try to feed the dog yet another two-bits. My parents smile on, for feeding quarters to dogs is perfectly normal to my friends and family. After all, isn't a person's concept of what's normal and what's not directly constructed by the environment in which he grew up and lived? Suddenly, the rules and laws of nature that pertains to this dream-world kick in and become known to me. As it turns out, this dream takes place in a world very much identical to the one in which we live right now, save a couple little odds and ends. One of these 'goofs' is feeding quarters to dogs. Half the population finds it to be harmless, and the other finds it to be harmful. Kind of like what cracking knuckles is to us, in the real world. Some find it to be the harmless release of built up gas bubbles in joints, and other find it to be the most severe cause of arthritis. Regardless, I'm trying to feed quarters to this dog, and the owners become so offended, they cancel their deals with Dave and Adina and Lisa and myself, and ask us to leave, using stern pointings toward their door for punctuation. And so the dream ends. I was able to give at least one quarter to the dog, and for a brief moment, the mut was happy. However, due to the clashing of belief systems betweenthe class of humanity that feeds quarters to dogs versus the class that doesn't, I cost both weddings a video-ographer. |
