In My Wildest Dreams

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming about something WAY out of any possibility for you, unless you win the Powerball lottery, inherit a fortune or suddenly develop more skills than any known human ever possessed?

No? You lie! We all do that. I’ll bet even billionaires have dreams beyond their means and abilities, such as owning a private spaceship and a home under a biodome on Titan.¹

The problem with most of these luxury dreams is that, hidden in the mist of all that ecstatic reverie, there always lurks some kind of glitch, a sort of evil dream catcher designed to kill pleasant daydreams instead of protecting you from nightmares.

Take, for example, this:

DREAM: Your own private Mediterranean island. It’s just a little one, but it has a beach, a heliport, and a private little harbor. There is a high cliff, on which you have built a dream house with absolutely perfect feng shui, designed to make maximum use of the cool breezes from the ocean. Nobody lives on the island but you and your staff, consisting of two gourmet chefs who have their own television show, a chauffeur, a helicopter pilot, a yacht pilot, a butler, two maids, a bartender, a doctor, a private nurse, and a really hot guy (or woman, depending on who you are) to rub sunblock on you, hand you drinks, fan you with peacock feathers and bring fresh towels. Your island doesn’t belong to any country, so you have set it up as a monarchy with yourself as Queen (or King). Since you are paying their large salaries, your staff is not going to question your royal decrees. You have named your little country after yourself (example: Kathrinia).

EVIL DREAM CATCHER: The island is hit with a huge storm. The yacht, the helicopter and everybody’s cell phones break down, and you are all stuck on the island together. Your employees, who blame you for everything, including the storm, take the opportunity to rebel against your tyranny, hold a kangaroo court and toss you from that high cliff onto that really hard rock below – the one you have been meaning to have removed to make way for a new gazebo with black marble floor and ceiling.

Scratch that dream. Next one:

DREAM: You have a ten-room, four-bathroom penthouse, which includes a luxurious rooftop garden. You have an outdoor and an indoor Jacuzzi. Your living room windows give a perfect panoramic view of New York Harbor and the Hudson River. On your walls hang several paintings by artists whose works will be worth a fortune after they die. You also have a Van Gogh which your cousin the “art transport specialist” acquired for your collection, but he advised you to hang it someplace inconspicuous and tell everyone it’s a fake.

EVIL DREAM CATCHER: Every elevator in the building breaks down, and you can’t get down from where you are up above the 50th floor. All of the maintenance workers are on strike, and the elevators don’t get fixed for two months. The elevators got stuck in the middle of the night, so the only person in the apartment with you is your significant other, and you have been having crockery-breaking fights for the last two weeks. You ran out of food and liquor three weeks ago, and have had to have fresh supplies airlifted to you by helicopter. The helicopter pilot hates you and all rich people and has been deliberately dropping everything. You have been eating squashed fruit and smashed tomatoes, there is a huge mess on that nice cobblestone walk in the garden and the maid refuses to climb 51 flights of stairs to come up and clean it.

Forget that one. Next:

DREAM: You are a Special Forces spy. You are jaw-dropping gorgeous (whether you are male or female) and the sexiest thing on the planet. You wear expensive designer clothes. Money is never an object because it’s always there when you want it. You drive a Rolls Royce, Mercedes or Ferrari, all of which have been fitted up with ejector seats and myriad ingenious devices. You always know when to press the right buttons, so that you don’t end up ejecting yourself or blowing yourself up, especially at a bad time. You are an expert in all of the martial arts. You speak at least ten languages fluently, including Mongolian. In fact, you are in Ulan Bator right now, ready to meet up with an arch-villain, the Mongolian Menace. Everything is ready. You practiced your Tai Chi this morning and your Karate this afternoon. Your cigarette lighter, which is actually a high-powered laser gun, is secure in your pocket. You sit on a stool in the hotel bar, smoking a cigarette and looking devastatingly hot with your great body and piercing eyes that miss nothing, when you spot the Menace coming toward you.

EVIL DREAM CATCHER: The Mongolian Menace has a gun. Guns shoot bullets. He also has just as many gadgets as you do, because he is a genius and he invents them, most of them lethal. He also has at least one pathologically loyal, sadistic henchman who enjoys killing spies. He can get you as easily as you can get him, and he just might do that.

Face it. You can’t win.

¹One of the moons of Saturn, in case you didn’t know.