What It's Like to Live with Me.

I woke up from a very vivid dream in which I had been encountered by Mother Nature who appeared in various forms. The dream was very vivid. Lots of greens and blues and reds and oranges and yellows and…well, it was colorful.

Nothing to do and no pressing reason to get up. I looked to my left. My wife was awake, too, and peering into her cell phone.

“Hey! You’ve got your cell phone!” She chose not to respond. “Mine’s charging at my desk. I need you to look something up!” I was so lazy I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. “I need you to look up Marion Ross!” Carole gave me a funny look. “I need to know if Marion Ross is still alive!”

"Marion Ross?"

"Yeah. You know. Mrs. C.! Richie Cunningham's mom on HAPPY DAYS! Tom Bosley's wife on the show! Did you know that Tom Bosley was Jewish? I mean--Father Dowling? Fuck! That guy went completely under my Jewdar! Didn't see that coming!"

Carole ignores the raving exposition. "Why would you possibly need to know if Marion Ross is alive?"

“I just had a dream about Mother Nature appearing to me and her voice was Marion Ross’s voice! I vividly recall she sounded exactly like Marion Ross! Look her up. Is she dead?”

“Okay, okay. Give me a second.” Then. “Why does it matter if she’s still alive?”

“Because if they make a movie out of my dream then she’ll have to voice Mother Nature.”

Another funny look (as if 'yeah, that's gonna happen'), but by then she had the information. “Yes, she’s still alive.”

“That’s good,” I say, and sit up. “Hey! They have her picture and one of Erin Moran when she was young! She was really cute! Too bad she croaked.”

More funny looks. “Very sad, yes.”

“Do me a favor. Look up the German word ‘jager’ for me! I think it means ‘hunter’, but I’m not sure. Look it up! J.A. G. E. R. YAY-ger,” I add.

“You’re right, it means ‘hunter’.” I know she’s going to ask me why I needed to know that, so I look at the screen of her cell phone and yell, “DAMN! Why do they have a photo of a cool-ass European travel trailer there? That makes no sense at all! That’s a cool trailer! Click on that and tell me about it!”

“You!” She’s angry, of course. Between me raving and pushing my head between her chest and her cell phone she has had it. “Just…just go somewhere else!”

And my job there was done.

Erin Moran and Marion Ross laugh at me.