Late last night while walking home I bumped into Dave Foley on the sidewalk.
“Hey, I just saw your set,” I said. “You were really funny.”
“Oh, thank you,” said the man I had spent a good chunk of my teen years idolizing.
“You know, I’ve had that exact same dream,” I said, “the one you described in your stand-up, where you’re just by yourself masturbating in your apartment?”
“Oh, really?” he said, as if this were a perfectly normal thing for a stranger to be telling him late at night on an empty sidewalk.
“Yeah, it’s really depressing. Because, like, I could dream of anything.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“It’s like my subconscious is telling me I should lower my expectations.”
“Probably says something about our self-esteem if that’s the best thing we can dream of.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Go figure.”
“Go figure,” he agreed. He smiled sympathetically.
“Well, thanks,” I said, and he said, “Take care,” and we waved goodbye to each other.
And for a very brief moment, I felt kind of good about myself.
