The Divan of Horrible Reruns

Gwen was having a dream. Dreams are normally very boring. Unless they involve sexual congress. And this one did. In a manner of speaking. Gwen was prone upon her divan. She was without accouterment. Buck was giving her back a back massage. Would he soon be giving her front a back massage? That was the question Gwen presented to the panel. Kitty Carlisle said, “It’s not without a certain trepidation that I address a question concerning the actions of a person called Buck and a young female person lying naked on the Divan of Misery.” Gwen rolled over onto her back. Her best dreams happened on her back. On her front, she would have Kitty Carlisle on her panel, on her back Sean Penn. Sonny Bono said, “Point of order. It’s the Divan of Miserableness. I am fed up with having to raise points of order because Miss Carlisle stops at the Tavern on the Gwen to knock back a fifth of Highland malt before the taping.” No one liked Sonny Bono. Even though he had died prematurely in a rather absurd way, no one liked him. Gwen flung her arm out in her sleep. She drew her arm in. She threw a leg out and drew it in. She drew a leg up to her chest; the other leg followed as night day. She rubbed her chin with the top of her shoulder. She plunged an index finger into a nostril. She withdrew that finger. She clasped her left breast with her right hand and her right breast with her left hand. “Now we are getting somewhere,” Sonny Bono said. “Being dead has not interfered with my residuals,” Dorothy Kilgallen said. Gwen’s nose twitched. It twitched again and again. Here’s a possible explanation.  Buck works at an Esso station, so he frequently smells like Esso gasoline. “Wrong!” Alex Trebek said. “Buck works at a Texaco station, so he smells like Texaco gasoline. That will cost you five points.” “Unfair!” Bennet Cerf  said. Gwen rolled onto her side. Nothing seemed to be working out. Since she was a little girl, nothing had worked out. We have so little control over things. Esso, Texaco, Shell, Exxon. Who’s in charge of this franchise madness? Buck ran his hands down the long smooth flesh of Gwen’s inner thigh. He removed something from his Ralph Lauren boxers. It was a picture of his favorite sheep. This is too much, clearly. Gwen knows it. Kitty and Sonny know it. Bennet Cerf and Charles Nelson Riley know it. Dreams have a standards board like everything else, and we will not jeopardize syndication for a few lewd moments of pseudo-stimulating pornography. When Gwen awakens in three hours, she will sense that something has changed in her life. Something that had been partaking of a layer of her misery will be partaking of a layer of her well-being. She will sit up in bed and smile and breathe in the fresh morning air. There’s nothing like the smell of eighty-nine octane coming through your window on a morning breeze after a night on the Divan of Moping. She can tell you.