Dream joke

Last night in a dream, Freya sent me a joke by email. It went something like this:

A guy has a parrot, an exceedingly rude, obnoxious, foul-mouthed parrot, probably confiscated by PETA from the last peg-leg pirate. The parrot is completely insufferable, the worst thing being that it won't shut up for a second, it spews a steady stream of obscenities like the proverbial faucet. The guy tries everything to make it behave: begging, pleading, threats, spanking, ignoring, fingers in the ears + "La la la, I'm not listening!", hiring a parrot whisperer, he even does a 30-day trial of not cursing himself, to set a good example. Nothing works.

Finally, out of options, short of ripping the parrot's face off, he takes the parrot by the scroat and throws it in the freezer. The stream of verbal abuse is muffled and then a minute later unexpectedly dies out completely. The guy is curious, and a bit worried, so he opens the freezer door. The parrot comes out and apologizes eloquently and profusely, promises it'll never take that tone of voice again and will be the most well-behaved pirate parrot the world has ever seen. The guy is completely mystified. As he picks his jaw up from the floor, then the parrot says, "Just one question. What did the chicken do!?"

And that is the first joke I've ever been told in a dream. Thanks Freya!

I dream of Dima

I read my dream diary today. I wrote in it on and off for around 6 months, mostly off judging by the amount of dreams recorded, and it is a pile of diamonds in the rough, though quite soft to sleep on. It reads like a collection of sci-fi microstories. Some of the stuff doesn't ring any bells, some sounds awesome and vague memories bubble to the surface, some was written with the wrong side of the pen and requires a seeing paw dog to read, and the rest are written in Dima's* handwriting and will probably never be deciphered. Still, you've got to keep those scientists busy or they get restless, and if there's anything I've learned from sci-fi movies, it's that scientists with free time inevitably end up responsible for a nuclear/chemical/fashion apocalypse.

Favorite quote out of the successfully (and possibly correctly) unscrambled notes:

"Took time slices of two apples to make sure one was traveling."

If only I'd taken a time slice of that dream and stuck it between the pages of the dream diary.

*One of my early childhood traumas. Grandma Mila was teaching me math. I had the makings of a great mathematician, evident in the fact that I wrote all over the page in anywhere but between the lines and all in some futuristic alphabet. Grandma Mila patiently tried to show me the light:

"You write like Dima and Dima writes like an idiot!"

Since then, as much as we love Dima, we can't help but abuse him verbally at each and every opportunity:

"That's not how you cut watermelon! You're holding the knife like Dima!"
"How'd you like my poem?" "You sure Dima didn't write it?"
"Look, everyone's a Dima when they first start, but don't worry, you'll get better."

He'll understand, once it goes viral and he gets his cut of the profits.