My Rudy Giuliani Dream

 Last week Rudy Giuliani was all over TV, ranting and raving about widespread election fraud, dark hair dye dripping down his face, epitomizing the hysterical lunacy that has now gripped the political right almost as bad as it has, for four years, infantilized the left. That night I had this dream:

20 years of so , I hold an entry level job at an office where the boss is Rudy. I am desperately involved in a frustrating task of securing elastic bands around loose papers around a rock-type item...this is the kind of thing my Grandson Philip daily sends me, random objects gift-wrapped in paper with tons of tape. After much effort and annoyance I succeed, breath a sigh of relief, and look up to see that I am in a meeting run by Rudy. Silence. Rudy scowls at me menacingly and then asks, of his mafia-type partner to his right, rhetorically and slowly a la Brando in The Godfather: "Tell me something...why is it...that every time I say anything in the meeting...Matty there...(Notice the diminutive which is faintly affectionate as it diminishes me to a childlike stature)... is either looking out the window daydreaming or talking with his buddy or playing with that stupid contraption of his?" Silence. I am quiet, not anxious but aware I am in big trouble and silently I say to myself "Choose your words carefully." So calmly I say "You are right...I got distracted...I apologize for that." I feel a momentary confidence that I had answered correctly, neither too much nor too little. Silence. Then I see that my burly buddy to my left is laughing compulsively, hysterically, head down, trying futilly to control himself. I myself erupt involuntarily into spasms of laughter as I realize this is the worst thing I could do. Rudy turns to his friend and they discuss how to punish me, deciding that since I had plans to go out that night they would keep me working through the night. 

At that exact moment I awaken and I am shaking in my bed with laughter. I wonder if I am waking up my wife who is sleeping soundly. I keep laughing, with immense delight, as I creep slowly to the bathroom.

Interpretation The lunacy of our politics, on left and right, deserves just such a spontaneous, fulsome belly laugh with all its ecstasy of delight, transcendence and relief.