Cleaning out old computer files seemed like a good idea to do while John and grandson David were away for three days. I had erased old lists, plans, and notes to people who are now dead. I hadn’t planned on giggling.
I wrote that I heard Lise laughing in her room and asked what was so funny. She replied, “I’m reading your family letters that I got in college before scanning them. Look at this one.”
I shouldn’t have laughed, but I couldn’t help it. A child told me a nightmare he’d had. Of course, one can’t share the horror of a dream in broad daylight. I could understand he’d waked with heart pounding and sweat pouring off him, but there was nothing in the telling that could make me quake. The punch line was so exquisite that I can’t resist writing it. You won’t let him know, will you? I wouldn’t want his feelings hurt, and he won’t be ready to hear this one on himself until he’s 25 years old.
In a confidential monotone voice he said, “I had a bad nightmare. A buffalo came at me and then elephants. This was in the mountains, and an elephant picked me up and carried me off up the mountain. It was awful. I was hunting for the abba, — the abda, — the ABDOMINAL snowman when I got picked up.”
That kinda hits you in the stomach, doesn’t it?.
Mehrling Muse 