Scrooge Had It Easy

Last night I could not sleep. So I turned on the TV and started surfing. I stopped on ESPN Deportes to watch a billiards match - that should have done the trick. But in a short time I realized that it was not eight-ball I was watching, it was snooker. More specifically, the International Paul Hunter Memorial Snooker Championship. Now I don't know much about snooker but I'm willing to learn. The object seems to be to hit a ball off the rails a few times without hitting your opponents balls. But I couldn't figure out much more than that because it was being broadcast in Spanish - ESPN Deportes. My Spanish really is not that good. Come se dice "speak slower" en Espanol?

The reason for my bout of insomnia deals with the time of year. No, I'm not stressed about the holidays or even the fantasy football playoffs. I'm worried about the upcoming death pool draft. I'm afraid that I may be haunted by the ghost of the Circling Buzzard in my sleep. As the ghost of Death Pools past, Phyllis Diller shows up in a bikini to take me to the grave of Arthur Miller. Fidel Castro shows me the present day memorial/celebration parade in honor of Augosto Pinochet. And finally, Ariel Sharon arrives to take me to the future ceremony of George W. Bush posthumously receiving the Lifetime Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the middle east. That's when I wake up in a cold sweat with 'stay-the-course' ringing in my ears.

Dreams are a strange thing, especially this time of year. Joseph had an angel appear to him in a dream and he threw his wife on a donkey and headed to Bethlehem for the birth of a child that was not his. That's one heck of a dream. Of course, Ebenezer Scrooge's dream is the most discussed this time of year. But if he would have realized the dream was just a result of some bad acid he took in college, he could have saved a few more bucks. Martin Luther King had a dream, too. It did not really have anything to do with the holiday season. But I did get 22 points when his wife died last January.