I dream of...

Dreams are often amusing and entertaining, especially when they are your spouse's. Occasionally I get a privileged glimpse into one of Joe's dreams, such as when he mutters something profound and deeply moving, like "getting water from the water tower." Unfortunately, when he wakes up and is informed about these interesting details and asked for more, he is unable to recall anything further.

Once in a while Joe makes a foray into my dreams. The results of this are often not good. The other night I dreamed that we were in this sort of retreat place, with a bunch of other people, but somehow the lower level turned into our new house. Joe was restoring the stone fireplace -- something he has often talked about doing in real life (although ours is probably brick, not stone), if only it didn't promise to be so messy.

In my dream, I stood beholding his handiwork. Instead of the admiration this might be expected to arouse, I was conscious only of a rising anger. Though he had done a beautiful job on the stone, he wasn't content with its natural beauty. He was painting it. More than that, he was painting it pink. Pink!

You know how weird dreams are. You do things you would probably never even think to do in real life. In this case, however, I did exactly what I probably would have done if this had actually happened. I said, "Honey, let's talk about this. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING??"

In my dream it had no effect on him. He merely told me he wasn't going to change his mind on this and there was no use trying (as I said, in dreams you often do things out of character). No matter that he had no good reason for painting our beautiful stone fireplace pink. I spent the rest of the dream stomping around and muttering (not so out of character). I was still mad at him when I woke up.

Later that morning, when we were both fully awake, he asked me why I seemed so out of sorts.

"You painted the fireplace pink!" I said, brandishing a fork at him and getting mad all over again. "And you wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to talk about it!"

And now, dear Loves to Laugh and other readers, you know why I am the one who wields the paintbrush in our house. Who knows WHAT colors we might end up with.