Henry Fonda Is Not A Jerk

I have to take Benadryl daily to survive living in beautiful Sonoma County. Mostly I only need one a day, but recently I’ve had to step up my dosage. I now take a Benadryl at night to help me from sneezing my head off my shoulders, which would wake up the girls, which would wake up Patricia, who would threaten me within in inch of my life if she didn’t get a full two hours of sleep a night.

As a rule, I don’t dream at night. Those of you who say everyone dreams, have never been in my head! For the most part, count yourself lucky. For me sleep is the two seconds between falling exhausted on my pillow, and waking refreshed the next morning. In order to wake me up in the night, you would need an atomic explosion, or at the least a bucket of ice water. Now with the Benadryl this is different story. I find myself having vivid dreams. This morning I awoke drained after spending all night in the Santa Rosa Airport terminal; trying to explain to Henry Fonda that I needed him to stop taking my money from the vending machine, as I was desparate to buy a package of laundry detergent. I knew if I was unsucessful I would starve. I was very angry with Mr. Fonda this morning, and it took a while to curb the desire to watch his death scene in “The Longest Day.” Those of you who dream regularly, this is nothing unusual; but to go from blackness to chaos every night is quite disconcerting. I find myself not wanting to go to sleep, to avoid the dreams.

I explained this to Patricia, but she wasn’t impressed, as elaborate dreams are standard fare for her. I cannot count how many dreams she has relayed in our marriage, and how unsympathetic I usually am. I will now give a little more credence to the terrifying troupe of baboons performing Mozart. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that for a few minutes every morning you have to tell yourself, “Henry Fonda is not a jerk, Henry Fonda is not a jerk.”