Robot Monkeys

My mother recently bought a new (and really good) cheese. I highly recommend it. It’s so good, that I had a dream about it.

I was standing on my front porch where a gathering of some sort was taking place. The focus of which was our guest, presidential hopeful, John Kerry. Kerry was talking to me and a small group of others about the reconstruction of Iraq, and the need of the US to get foriegn (especially European) help.

Kerry:	The occcupation isn’t going nearly as well as the Whitehouse was telling us it would be before the war. The military, under orders from the White House, is violating the Geneva Conventions in regards to the treatment of POWs. The Geneva Conventions clearly state that each prisoner is entitled to 1 piece of cheese with breakfast, 2 pieces of cheese with lunch, and 3 pieces of cheese with dinner. One for pork, one for beef, and one for chicken. The White House has ordered that the Iraqi prisoners only get two pieces of cheese for dinner, under the auspices that Muslims don’t eat pork, so they don’t need the cheese for pork. Now this doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the principle. First, the United States undertakes unprovoked invasions of countries with UN approval. Now the United States violates the Geneva Conventions. Now we’re occupying Iraq. The fact is that rebuilding Iraq is going to be long and expensive. We simply can’t afford to do this alone. Not economically. Not diplomatically. But the President has alienated our allies with his “go it alone” rhetoric, and insults like “old Europe”. We need the EU’s help, and that means Germany and France. However with all the talk of needing to punish France and the rest of allies for respecting the wishes of their public, I just don’t see that happening.
me:	Senator. My mother recently bought some cheese at Sam’s that’s really good, and it’s from Denmark. Perhaps we could get the Danes to provide the cheese to the prisoners. I know it’s not much, but it could serve as a figleaf to star repairing the damage done to the transatlantic alliance.
Kerry:	Danish cheese you say? I didn’t know the Danes made cheese.
me:	Niether did I, and it’s really good. Would you like to try it?
Kerry:	Yes, please.
I go in to the kitchen, slice some pieces of the cheese off and serve it on a saucer with toothpics.
Kerry:	Mmmm. This is good! And it’s made by the Danes you say?
me:	Yes. shows the label with the Danish flag on it
Kerry:	It’s European, so it brings the EU into the reconstruction. It’s not French, so those damn “punish France” neocons will vote for it. And it’s cheese, so we can comply with the Geneva Conventions. This might work. Thank you. You’ve done a service to your country.
me:	I’m just glad to help Senator.

Since I made my career change, I’ve been once again dreaming. Really good high quality dreams too. Long. Vivid colors. Nonlucid. (I used to have a problem having nonlucid dreams. It becomes unsatisfying after a while.)

I don’t really remember what was all involved in this dream, but I do remember that it was cool. Two things do stick in my mind though. First, there was a guy that had a giant (about 4.5 - 5 foot long 1 - 1.5 foot tall) ferret. This wasn’t just a normal giant ferret. No this one was kind of a greyish brown, and had a face that resembled what an opossum muppet would look like. Its hair was thin with thick patches here and there. Like how you’d expect a giant ferret to look in a movie if it was dying of radiation poisoning. The guy would feed it from his hands, and the ferret would stand up and eat from it like a dog. There was something about the giant ferret that made me wary. Like I had to watch it, or it would attack me, even though I knew it wouldn’t.

The other thing I remember from my dream was a dark room with a large display box in it. The display box had a joystick and a coin slot and alot of people were standing around and playing it, and generally having a good time. Eventually I made my way to the front of the line to see what was going on. I put my nickle in and the game activated. (The game would activate with as little as a nickle, but some people (i.e. suckers) would drop a quarter.)

The lights turned on inside the box and I could see my nickle sitting on a little stage in front of me. Sitting on the other side of stage was a miniture chimpanzee. (approx 8 inches tall). There was little of spot of light that I could control with the joystick to guide the monkey to the nickel. I moved the spot from next to the minimonkey (I know chimpanzees are apes and not monkeys, but I like the term “minimonkey” better.) and guided it straight across the stage to the nickel. The monkey climbed up onto the stage, sat down and ate the nickel. As the monkey ate, blinds would fold down around the playarea while the game reset and awaited a new player.

The game was just one big interactive skinner box. I did played a couple of more times, and thought this was wierd, but not unenjoyable. The crowd on the other hand thought it was boring. Eventually someone said, “Hey! You’re supposed to move the monkey through the maze.”

Sure enough, the next time I activated the game I noticed that to my right was a little path to an area that sat in the corner of the the case. I then became aware that there was a track that ran around the box that would lead the monkey to the stage with the nickel.

I guided the monkey into the first area, saw a flash of movement, heard some screams, the crowd give a good athletic disappointing “OHHHH!!!”and the game reset.

“What the hell happened?”

“You got killed dude.”

“What?”

“You got killed. You got to be more careful. Try again.”

I dropped in another nickle. The blinds went away and there was another minimonkey sitting right where the other was. I moved it into the area, this time aware of what was going to happen.

Inside that area were micromonkeys (read: 4 inch chimps) armed with micromonkey sized guns. (Mostly automatic rifles) They swarmed around the minimonkey shooting it. Eventually I got it to run/limp its way over toward the exit where BAM! a fist of some sort of minigorilla that was standing guard flew out and struck my minimonkey right in the chest, causing him to explode.

“How the hell did that happen?”

“You’ve got to watch out for the King-Kongs. They’re not as fast as the gunners, infact they don’t really move around at all, but if they hit you. You’re dead.”

“How could just one hit cause me to explode like that?”

“They breed them that way.”

I tried again this time getting my monkey past the first room, down a hallway of micromonkeys with guns, and clubs, and maces, around a corner and onto the back wall which was lined with flamethrowers.

My minimonkey was burned to death.

I stopped playing. I was becoming part of the mob. I probably killed 4 or 5 minimonkeys trying to master the game. I decided that I needed to stop it.

Turns out the guy in charge of this was standing close by. He was a short, young Steve Martin, wearing the Surgeon General’s uniform. He was refered to as “doctor” or something. I was trying to convince him that this was wrong: breeding and killing minipirmates for entertainment. He gave me some crap about how this was essential science. Eventually he admitted that he didn’t even believe the stuff he was saying and was willing to stop it, but couldn’t and nodded over to this other guy standing back behind a glass wall
with a clipboard and an even more ornate Surgeon General’s uniform. (They weren’t military, they were surgeons general damn it.)

Then I woke up.

This weekend John and I went out to the bars. While we were walking down the street, a car full of girls pulled up next to us and stopped. The window rolled down, and the girl in the passenger seat yelled out, “HEY! YOU WANNA FUCK?”.

I, like every other heterosexual male, have dreamed of this very moment since I was 12. All those years of dreams payed off when I spun around without missing a beat and said, “Sure thing baby!”.

Of course it wasn’t exactly like in my dream. In my dream, they don’t drive off.