The Centennial (which actually means 100 YEARS, but I don’t care that I’m using it incorrectly. Anyway…)

I’ve been waiting to write anything for this, my 100^th POST, and put it online for fear that it wouldn’t be big enough for all the splendor and glory of this monumental day. This post should be—pardon my use of such a common word of this generation—EPIC. I’m talking a moon-landing-ticker-tape-parade-erect-a-statue-in-my-honor kind of post, people. I’ve already put up 99 good ones; it’s time for EPIC.  

[This picture isn't fully necessary, but it felt really good to draw. What can I say? I dream big on special days.]

But, given that I haven’t posted for a week and a half, I figure I should postpone the world-saving, rally-inducing, room-key-throwing post for now and tell you about a dream I had yesterday while I was taking a nap. For only an hour, my brain packed a lot in.

I was working at a doggy daycare. Who knows what influenced me to dream about that, Christie Roberts. As I was cleaning the waiting room, I noticed that Sandy, a friendly yellow lab, had gotten out of the kennel room.  I gently led her over to the door that had been left open and watched as she trotted over to Bunker, a black lab. A woman came up to me and said, “Aren’t they cute? They’re married.”

It did not seem necessary to question this comment about canine matrimony.

I was just about to close the door when the lights darkened in the kennel room. Then up came risers filled with cheering and picture-taking crowds of humans, and a ring circled around Sandy and Bunker, who donned boxing gloves on their front paws. Rearing up on their back legs, they began to box.

ME: Whoa, these dogs box?

WOMAN NEXT TO ME: Yeah. They say it’s really therapeutic for their marriage. Once a week, they just start going at it. Like dogs, hahahah.

ME: That’s funny.

Allow me to mention my memories of what I saw in this dream. The dogs didn’t necessarily look like dogs with boxing gloves. Like maybe….this:

 

No, they looked like an airbrushed painting of dogs with hairy, human bodies boxing, the kind that artists who have no artistic integrity paint and then sell at the mall next to pictures of Dale Earnhardt and American flag-decaled motorcycles painted in the same style. Something like this…

[Dear Artist, 

Don't you feel like you're kind of limiting your audience to dog-loving boxing fans who have no concept of art or originality? Or do you think that this is reminiscent enough of the cliché poker-playing dogs painting that people will actually buy it and put it in their suburban basement game rooms next to their foosball tables and unused NordicTracks?

Just saying.

Love,

Brian]  

Artistically, it was pathetic. But I dismissed that because, hey, two married dogs are lovingly duking it out in my doggy daycare.

ME: Wow. I wish I could talk to them about their marriage.

WOMAN: Well go ahead then!

Suddenly I was transported into Tim and Jill Taylor’s living room on the set of Home Improvement. And it happened just like the way the old episodes would go to commercial—each chunk of the surrounding scene flew off the screen with a sound effect while that chromatic descending music played...starting with the flute, and then with the full band...Bee dee tee teedle-ee dee dee, dah dah, dah dah, dah dah, dah dah…bum bum BUM! (Tim’s guttural man noise.)

I’m guessing you all know what I’m talking about.  

And there I was, sitting across from Tim the Toolman Taylor and his wife, talking to them about their marriage. This is a paraphrase of how the conversation went:

TIM: Oh, blah blah blah. Women blah blah. Men can do much better blah blah. Ah can’t stand ‘em. Blah. Jill’s the worst. Blibbity blah blah.

ME: [Smiling, but considering punching him in the teeth for being so chauvinistic.]

JILL: Do you want me to tell you what’s the problem with Tim?

ME: Sure. [Wanting to see their trademark bickering…considering whipping out my cell phone to take a picture.]

JILL: See that handle on his back?

ME: Um, yeah. [Suddenly confused to see an actual handle coming out of Tim’s back.]

JILL: Give it a pull!

Tim then turned and allowed me to take the handle into my hand.  Then, just like a seatbelt, I pulled out a long, thick ribbon filled with many insults in bold block letters about Tim the Toolman Taylor. I stopped to read one.

“The only people that Google Tim Taylor are Google People.” 

And then I woke up.

I’m not even going to try to look deeper into that one.