An unsettling dream. But kind of funny, too, in a way.
I was sitting on the couch in Joe’s oval office. We seemed to be friends. Maybe I was a Democrat? Those kinds of things can happen in a dream.
I’m not sure why I was there. I suppose, to gather material for today’s humor column?
The door opened, and Tony Blinken (Secretary of State) and Marty Walsh (Secretary of Labor) strolled in, looking like they’d just come from a three-martini lunch. Expensive navy blue suits and blue silk ties. Blue being a popular color, in dreams, when you might be a Democrat.
For any of my readers who don’t know these gentlemen, Tony Blinken previously worked in the Obama administration, where he helped craft U.S. policy on Afghanistan. He also did other things that were not quite as amusing.
Marty Walsh served as the mayor of Boston, and also in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he introduced legislation to designate “Roadrunner” (by The Modern Lovers) as Massachusetts’ official state rock song.
The video was not part of my dream. Thankfully. But the ensuing conversation, there in the oval office, was still pretty weird.
“Morning Joe,” said Tony, shaking the President’s hand.
Sitting there on the couch, I wondered if that particular greeting annoyed the President. “Morning Joe”. For a guy who doesn’t even drink coffee.
“Morning, Tony. Morning, Marty. What’s cooking?” was Joe’s response.
Marty Walsh waved a hand in my direction. “Are we okay, talking with this guy in the room?” he queried.
Joe smiled. “Don’t mind him. This is Louis. He’s just a humor writer for the Pagosa Daily Post.”
Marty looked me up and down. He appeared to be fumbling nervously with something in his suit pocket. A bottle of prescription painkillers?
“Louis Cannon? I’ve read your stuff. Some of it isn’t too funny.”
I was tempted to say something about his ‘Roadrunner’ legislation. But I didn’t.
Of course, he hadn’t read this column yet… which I’m writing this morning… because that would be impossible, even in a dream. Because I hadn’t written it yet. I think he would have found it hilarious.
Marty gave me a hard look. “You’re not going to write about this conversation, are you?” He turned to the President with an expression of mild concern.
I just smiled and sat there on the couch. You can do that in a dream. You don’t have to answer people’s questions, because they don’t actually exist.
“Don’t worry about Louis,” said Joe, in his grandfatherly voice. “No one believes anything he writes.”
I could tell Tony Blinken was frustrated by this side conversation, and had something important he wanted to talk about. Some people are just like that. Not me. I can talk about unimportant things all day long. Or I might just sit there, being quiet.
“So Marty and I have been talking,” Tony began. “And we talked to Lloyd about it, too.”
I assumed that meant Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense. But maybe it was soccer star Carli Lloyd, who scored the gold medal-winning goals in the finals of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. I don’t think Lloyd Austin has ever scored a goal in the Olympics, but I might be wrong.
But whoever it was, Tony and Marty had apparently talked to him, or her.
Tony continued.
“We’re looking hard at this employment crisis, Joe. Nobody can find employees. It’s like all the people who used to want $14-an-hour jobs have vanished off the face of the earth.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been hearing,” the President agreed.
I thought to myself, gee, we’ve got the same problem in Pagosa Springs. Except the jobs here are more like $12-an-hour. I could have mentioned that, but instead, I just sat there, twiddling my thumbs.
“No Secretary of Labor has ever had to deal with this kind of problem,” Marty blurted out. “Job openings everywhere, and no one applying for them? It’s embarrassing. I’m going to wind up with egg on my face, if this continues.”
“And believe me, I don’t want you to have egg on your face, Marty,” Joe smiled reassuringly. “Nobody does.”
“The Republicans do,” Marty protested.
“Join the club,” the President smiled.
“So the plan is pretty simple,” Tony continued. “We bring the boys back from Afghanistan. Put them to work over here.”
The President put his hand on his chin. “Pull out of Afghanistan? Surrender the country to the Taliban? After 20 years of military effort? I don’t know…”
“Think about it, Joe. Those boys have been shot at, and spit on, for how many years? And it’s gotten us nowhere,” Tony argued. “You think they wouldn’t be relieved to come home, and settle into a nice cushy job at Walmart or McDonald’s?”
Marty was nodding his head in agreement. “We’ve got 15 months before the midterm elections, to get this economy back on its feet. Or we’re gonna lose the Senate. And you know what that means.”
Joe looked a little confused. “What does it mean?”
“It means we lose the Senate!” Marty tried to say that in a whisper, but I still heard him. He was definitely fumbling with something in his pocket.
“Joe, let’s face it, no one even knows where Afghanistan is,” Tony suggested with a smile. “We’ll stop talking about it, and people will forget the war ever happened.”
“And your Secretary of Labor have thousands of unemployed soldiers, to plug into vacant job slots,” Marty chuckled.
I felt like I should say something mildly funny, now that Marty was chuckling. Something a humor writer might say. Before I had to wake up.
But sometimes, in a dream, you just can’t come up with the right punch line.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.