An open letter to my buddy, Keith

Keith,

I drank Nyquil last night before bed. Jocelyn's sick, and I don't want to get sick, plus I haven't been sleeping with all the anxiety I've had lately, so Nyquil seemed like a good idea. Well, aside from sleeping 10 and 1/2 hours, I had this one dream, and I mean ONLY ONE DREAM that whole time. And I even got up to pee…twice! But when I came back to bed…SAME DREAM!!! So here it is:

You, Brian and I (along with a carload of some friends of yours I didn’t recognize) went to this new comedy club you'd been raving about. The reason you liked this club (unbeknownst to me) was that the style of comedy there was called "Karaoke Comedy" or "Comedy-oke" or some damned thing. I didn't know this until we got there and they called my name to come up on stage. Seems you put my name on the list without telling me. Needless to say, I was thrilled. But I went up on stage and did this lame act with a snake puppet (probably something Freudian about that) and a gigantic black hat. I got a few laughs, but was mostly humiliated, so after I got offstage, I walked around the parking lot pissed off while the rest of you comedy-oked your heads off. In the parking lot I found a lot of broken comedy props. It looked like Carrot Top's reject pile, so I played with the stuff until you all came out, red-eyed and holding your sides from laughing. We all piled into your car, which looked a lot like the vintage car from Burnout 2 (you know the black one with the big fins?). Anyway, it sat six of us comfortably, and off we went. As we drove along, one of your friends asked which way we were going to take home. And before you could answer, another said "The swamp road, the swamp road!" You asked the rest of us what we thought, and I asked, "What the hell is the swamp road?" To which, Brian replied, "Yeah, it should be dry enough to cross this time of year." And everybody cheered (except me). Fuckin' Brian. So you made a turn somewhere on the freeway, and before long we were on a military base of some sort. Turns out the "swamp road" was nothing more than a series of dirt trails and suspension bridges over big chunks of a swampy training area. We stopped at the first bridge because you didn't think it was wide enough to allow your big-ass car to make it. But then everyone in the car (except me) began chanting "Go for it, go for it, go for it…" and so you did. We made it across the first bridge with little difficulty, and up onto a nice patch of solid ground. That's when the light hit us. The whole area lit up like high noon, and helicopters hovered directly above us. Voices came over loud-speakers telling us to stop, and you did. I sat next to Brian in the back, and as you stopped the car we could hear some kind of knocking on the back and roof. I asked Brian what was happening, and he started to cry. Then a bunch of flashlights shone in the windows and we were all pulled out of the car. We were surrounded by men flashing badges from every federal agency I know, and soldiers with guns. The top of your car was marked in yellow with symbols that looked like something from the Roswell crash, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see a whole bunch of cars all over the area with people pulled out of them just like us. One of your friends said something about his dad being military, and that they should therefore let us go, so one of the soldiers shot him dead. Then, you and your other two friends were taken off by some men in dark suits. They took you, along with a bunch of people from other cars, into this concrete bunker type thing. Brian and I just stood there. All of a sudden the soldiers and government men began to leave, and the only people that remained were these hippie-types in multi-colored robes. They led all the rest of us to picnic tables near the bunker and fed us sliced tomatoes. Every once and a while, some of us would be taken into the bunker. Brian was in one of those groups, and I never saw him after that. Then the tomato-server guy came up to me, and I asked if I could have two slices. He let me, but looked at me real funny and said "Come with me." He led me off alone into the bunker where we walked down some stairs and into a small-ish room where a bunch of people sat and watched a flat screen TV. They were all in robes of various colors, and it quickly became clear to me that the colors were like karate belts; the darker your color (up to purple in this case) the higher your position in the cult. There you sat, Mr. Keith Elsner in your purple robe, smiling as the new inductees watched your cult leader "Dr. Jack" on the flat screen. In front of everyone I was told to strip naked. I guess this was meant to humiliate and dehumanize me, but instead, I did it gladly. Then I was handed a bar of soap and a pail of water, and told to wash myself. Specifically, I was told to, "Wash away humanity's stink." Which I also did willingly. This attitude angered the guy who'd brought me to the room, and as he handed me my inductee-white robe (terrycloth), he shoved me into the room. I took my seat next to a nice old woman who said she was Michael Caine's aunt, and had come into the "Auto Club" (as they all called it) through him. Then the picture on the flat screen changed from Dr. Jack to a picture of Mel Gibson made up to look like a tree in some movie, with the voice over of Dr. Jack stating that Mel was instrumental in getting the whole "Auto Club" thing started. I looked over at you, and you simply nodded to me as if to say, "Absolutely right." And that's when I forced myself to wake up and STAY up. I knew it…and I'm gonna get you.

How many times must I pay for dressing like Nick Fury and shooting you?

Mike...