Suzanne Happens
Occasionally, I’ll have a bad dream about someone and wake up angry with them. This happened recently, when I dreamt I was headed to Spring Training and had asked Suzanne to care for my beloved poodle, Garbage. “Sure, Chip,” she had answered cheerfully. “You know I love spending time with Garbage; It’s no trouble at all.” I felt I could trust Suzanne, so I thanked her, jumped on my motorcycle, and happily sped away.
Some time that weekend, Suzanne took Garbage to the park for a walk. Everything was going fine until Suzanne let Garbage off her leash and then left her to go ice dancing with some hockey guy. Garbage, feeling too horrified to stick around watching Suzanne make a spectacle of herself, ran off to explore the city. Garbage has no patience for a show off. She pranced happily through the streets, smiling at strangers and stopping periodically to feel the warmth of the sun on her face.
When she stepped into the road behind some pigeons that were crowded around a spilled box of popcorn, I knew it was over for Garbage.
I woke up and felt a rush of relief, but the underlying bitterness and resentment I felt towards Suzanne was overwhelming. I decided something must be done. I made a list of scathing anti-Suzanne propaganda, reported to work at Zebra Printing, and opened a fresh box of blank bumper stickers. While largely ignoring the customers, I hammered out several incendiary designs and had hundreds of each printed by lunch time. I closed up shop just after noon and headed out into the streets of Santa Fe.
Soon, every light pole in a six-block radius read, “Suzanne, thanks for nothing.” I put stickers on every car I could find with a variety of messages, from “My other car is parked on Suzanne”, to “Honk if Suzanne really blew it”, and even “If you can read this, tell Suzanne to go to hell”. By the time I ran out of “Suzanne Happens”, I was exhausted and headed home rather proud of myself.
I slept heavily that night and woke up feeling refreshed but wondering if perhaps I had overreacted. During my breakfast, Suzanne called to fire me. It was a decent job, but I didn’t really care. I finished eating and started investigating local animal shelters. I had decided to get a dog.
Written for “Dreamlike”