Come sail away

In keeping with the theme here at 20 Degrees Off Center, "quint's Greatest Hits" has been postponed for a few days so you can hear one of my harrowing tales of fright and woe.

When I was little, we had a Slip'n'Slide. You know what this is? It's basically a plastic strip, sometimes like fifty feet long and maybe three feet wide. You throw a sprinkler on it to make it wet, and then you run and slide on it. You get wet. And then, after a while, the grass and lawn get really wet, and soon, at one end of the Slip'n'Slide, you have a nice mudhole. So now, you are not only wet, but muddy too. The mud hole doesn't matter in this story. I'm good at getting off on tangents.

I remember this dream very vividly. I must have been ten or even younger when I had it. Just a little guy, I was...

I go walking outside, and it's a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the grass looks brand new glinting and reflecting the light. What little breeze there is smells of grass and flowers. Birds sing. I look around and see that it's a great day for the Slip'n'Slide. I go into the garage and get it and a sprinkler. I walk around to the side lawn and set the sprinkler down. Then, I call for my sister, two years younger than me. "I need help!"

She comes running over, and without either of us saying anything, she grabs one end of the plastic strip and I grab the other. We both know what we need to do - lay the Slip'n'Slide on the lawn and then use the little metal tacky things to hold it down. The wind's picking up now, so it's a two-person job, holding this thing on the ground and not letting it blow away. We decide that the best way to stretch it out is to each grab an end and pull it out. As we do that, the wind picks up and grabs the Slip'nSlide like a parachute. I'm holding on as hard as I can, and so is she. But the wind is so strong! I'm holding on to the plastic, but my feet can't hold the groud!

The next thing I know, I'm getting pulled straight up into the air, while my younger sister stands on the ground yelling for me to come back down. I'm holding on for dear life, because I can feel myself getting pulled ever upward. She yells, "Just let go, you'll come down!"

So I do.

And I don't come back down. I keep floating up! Higher, and higher! I'm doing anything I can to get back down, swimming, kicking, screaming, but nothing works. I keep going higher, until everything is a speck on the ground. That's were I woke up.

That's where I wake up.

I still have that dream. Or variations of it. It's not always a Slip'nSlide, once it was a kite, another time I was in a boat with Lumpy and two others. Another time I was in a golf cart.

It's dorky, I know. And funny too. But not when you're dreaming it. Have you ever seen The Forgotten? Yeah, it's that scary, when I'm dreaming it.

I just went back and read this post. It's not as funny as I thought it was going to be. Sorry about that. (Then again, maybe it is funny, it's just so dang scary to me, I dunno...as they say, quint's brain has gone all Texas on him!)

Here's a joke to make this funnier:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, set up their tent, and fall asleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes his faithful friend.

"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson replies, "I see millions of stars."

"What does that tell you?"

Watson ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Timewise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

Holmes is silent for a moment, then speaks. "Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent."