Day Three

I got a good night sleep last night. I needed it after that wild night at the Empress Casino. I did have a few dreams. I didn’t like the first one. It was about that Hillbilly Band that sang Johnny Cash songs. They were chasing me on a giant treadmill. The two dogs from Chicago, Sarge and Ghetto Skunk , were running with us and barking up a storm. Every time the guy with no teeth got close to catching me the homely singer would start singing Folsom Prison. It made me think about what goes on in prison after hours. I would speed up my running and the treadmill would spin us around and eject us. I figured it was that shot of Tequila I drank at the bar with the lady who didn’t want to see my essays. Booze makes me dream crazy things. The second dream was better. I was on the Fireboat. We were having a party. The boat was moving at a high rate of speed. At the helm was Howard Whittis. Howard was a weird kid who hung around the firehouses in the 7th Battalion. Water skiing behind the boat was several famous Firefighters including Big Bill Russel. I was drinking ice cold beer with my friends. There was music and my friend Greg Pearn was dancing with Chicago Lil. I never got to see the end of the dream but it had movie potential.

I was refreshed in the morning. All went well until I drank a cup of coffee prepared by Roger, my son-in-law. Roger is a coffee connoisseur. He drinks only the best. The problem is, he likes it strong. It is so thick it could be used to apply black face at a minstrel show. I only took two sips. I was immediately jolted into a herky-jerky state that caused me to put the cup down before I sprayed the walls with my shaking hands. The left side of my face went numb and I passed two squeaky farts that sounded like a castrated dying mouse. I knew I would be wired for the rest of the day.

Lisa took me to the Mid River Mall so I could take my daily walk. It was huge. It took 40 minutes to walk around it three times. We went to Coscos next. We stopped and ate at every promotional site in the store. The free samples were great. When we finished grazing I bought us a couple of hot dogs for breakfast. It was a fun third day.