Jewels of Elul CXVIII: A Month of Dreamers that Feels like a Year

with apologies to Craig 'N Co.

Since I have a lot of money, people are always sending me their crazy ideas. And I have to take them home on the train. I fall asleep and dream . . . dream of long vacations, plush terry-cloth robes, little bars of soap you always steal and then feel obscurely guilty about (unless you steal from the minibar, in which case you dream about credit-card bills in the mail and some meaty guy stomping through your front door with a large stick). When I wake up from my dream, I'm at the last station stop and the janitor has to sweep me out of the car with his broom. I wander outside and can't find the bus stop. Scared, I take a taxi.

That's my dream. To some people, it's trivial, stupid, a little cheap. But then I give them some money, and the word "cheap" is never mentioned again. The word "dream" is thrown around a lot, mostly by me. The prophets of Israel, I read, used to dream. Their dreams are full of sprouting sticks, rattling bones with ill-fitting skin heaving themselves reluctantly to their resurrected feet, women eating their newborns. Not Elul stuff at all.

When I think how far I have come, and how much money I have, I thank whatever gods may be for my dreams. I might write them down in a book someday. Dreams do come true!