I always wake up drooling like a stoned dipshit. It may look adorable in the morning, that cute little puddle of spit saturating the pillow under my cheek, but I’d hate to see how I look while producing that puddle. I probably look dead. Eyes rolled back, mouth ajar and cocked to the side. I’m usually having a pretty good – or pretty bad – dream just before I wake up in my own saliva.
The last dream that ended in a moist pillow was a nightmare. It scared the living shit out of me, not because of what happened in the dream, but because of what happened after.
I dreamt my son, Gadget, was bitten on the calf by a venomous insect. His dad, Vin, noticing the fang punctures swelling and blackening, rushed him to the emergency room. The doctors didn’t bother with irrigating or debriding the wound. They just cut that leg right off. Lazy motherfuckers. Vin didn’t bother calling me from the ER to let me know they’d lopped Gee’s leg off. He figured he’d just pop it on me at home because he didn’t want me worrying the whole time they were away. Man, was I pissed. They were both fine though, looking on the bright side maybe. The kid lost one leg, but hey, there’s still one more!
Anyway, yeah, I woke from this dream sloppy-faced in my own spit. Gadget was on top of me going, “Mommmmmm! Happy Father’s Day!”
“I’m not your father, Gagdet.”
I adjusted my sleep mask and pulled the blanket over my head. Gadget pulled both off, laughing like a nerd and kissing my chin. “Mom! Wake up! Where’s Dad?”
“How would I know? I’m sleeping. I love you, child, but please go away.”
“But it’s Father’s Day. I need to Make a card.”
“So make one?”
“I need you to give me photos.”
“Aww, crud… yeah, I’m getting up. Let me pee and get my coffee first.”
So I got up and peed and cut my morning wind loudly into the toilet, smirking stupidly, because I’m mentally a twelve-year-old boy. Then I went and fixed my coffee, because without it I’m just stupid.
I met Gadget at the printer. Together we scoured through hundreds of pathetically unsorted photos on my ‘puter, looking for the perfect pic of Gadget with his dad. We ended up choosing three, which I began to print. As the first photo slid out of the printer, and I was deeply immersed in photo nostalgia and unable to look away from the computer, Gadget said to me, “Mom, my leg feels weird,” in a tone that made me freeze.
My limbs went numb, the blood drained from my face, and I think my heart stopped. “Gadget, w-what do you mean?”
Frozen stiff, it took about a year for me to turn around and look. Gadget giggled as Calamity Jane*, our bitchy little feline, rubbed up against his leg.
“Oh, my bloody hell, Gee! You scared the spit out of me!”
“No, Mom, you drooled the spit out of you.”
“Yeah, whatever, turd.”
………..
*Calamity Jane, the bitchy little feline? She shat in a box of litter. You might think this is normal cat behavior, but when I say “box” I don’t mean her plastic litter box, the receptacle that most cats shoot for when they’ve gotta drop a loaf.
Vin noticed Calamity’s plastic litterbox was becoming chunky with her downloads and initiated the cleaning process. Old litter dumped, fresh box liner placed, he went to get the box of new litter. The box was scratched and chewed along the opening, but otherwise intact, so he reached in to grab the plastic liner and found it had also been shredded. Upon further inspection he discovered a brand new turd inside the bag. She’d opened the box, ripped open the liner, wriggled her butt down into the bag, and shat. Calamity clearly is impatient.
