(post copyright 2019, Dawn Weber)
My Buddy Al has dreams.
You remember Al, my Youngstown pal, he of the Day of Three Burritos. My co-worker, my friend, and the man who advises us all to never, ever - under any circumstances - wait in line with the dummies.
Yes, Al has dreams. But he doesn't dream of a new car or house or job. He doesn't dream of curing cancer, solving world peace or winning the lottery. He doesn't dream big, he doesn't dream small. Nope.
Al dreams of Snoop Dogg.
In his cubicle.
Eating pie and tearing things up.
Al didn't tell me about his dream right away - I heard it on a lunch break one day from our co-worker, Shereen.
"Tell her about Snoop Dogg!" she said.
Intrigued, I turned to Al. "What does she mean 'Snoop Dogg?'"
He regarded me briefly from his fun-size bag of potato chips. "Snoop Dogg was here."
"What do you mean, 'Snoop Dogg was here'?"
He grabbed a napkin, wiped his face and placed the chip bag on the table.
Things are serious when Al puts down his chips.
He leaned forward. "So, I dreamed I was in my cubicle, right?"
"Okay . . ." I said.
"I was sitting here working," he said, "and Snoop Dogg came flying around the corner!"
"Wow," I said. "Snoop Dogg. How cool!''
"No," Al shook his head. "He started yelling at me and tearing down my pod walls."
"Are you sure it was Snoop Dogg?" I asked. "That doesn't sound like him. All that weed - he seems like such an amiable guy."
"Oh, it was him. And he was eating pie - my pie, mind you - and yelling 'Ra-ZIZZO! Ra-ZIZZO!' Over and over."
"Well, what did you do?" I asked Al, who is 6'4" and built like a linebacker. "Did you fight back?"
"No way," he said. "He was acting all crazy, so I hid under my desk. He just kept eating pie, yelling 'Ra-ZIZZO! Ra-ZIZZO !' and tearing down my cubicle."
I nodded, speechless.
"Then the walls fell on me," he said, "I was trapped between them and my desk. And he's over there eating pie and yelling."
"What happened next?"
"That was it. I woke up. I was all . . . agitated."
"Huh," I said. "What do you think that was about?"
He shrugged, leaned back and picked up his chips, clearly done with the matter. "Who knows?"
Break over, I walked back to my cubicle where there were, sadly, no chips, rappers or bakery products whatsoever, and pondered Al's dream. What could it mean, the collapsing cubicle, the famous celebrity, the random pastry? Did Al envy Snoop's lavish lifestyle? Did he feel trapped at his desk sometimes?
Holy Hostess cupcakes - was he lacking in sugary snacks?
I haven't seen many episodes, but I'm sure Snoop Dogg has made desserts on VH1's "Martha and Snoop's Dinner Party." And I'm sure he did it in his usual laid-back, sleepy-stoner way. I just can't imagine Snoop being aggressive about anything these days - especially pie - which makes it even more odd that he antagonized Al in this fashion. I mean, not only did he tear down his cubicle, he yelled at him.
And then went on to eat the man's snack.
In the end, the whole thing probably meant nothing. Just a bunch of chemicals coursing through a man's brain overnight, reminding him of things he might have seen that day. Cubicles. Snoop Dogg. Pie. I guess there's really no point in worrying about it.
After all, I don't want to ruin Al's dreams.
