I’m having a disturbing dream…

Packs of Chihuahuas roam the streets. I’m watching them attack old people. Babies in strollers. Other larger dogs. Anything that offers a meal. kids escape the depraved dogs by crowding onto a yellow bus—trapping one hapless chihuahua in the folding door. This Old Man had been waiting in line to board the bus when the kids crowded in front of him. Now he’s screaming, “open the door! For God’s sake, let me in!” The driver gazes at the wiggling chihuahua, trapped like a worm on a hook. He shakes his head. Meanwhile, Chihuahuas on the hunt spot the Old Man. They swarm the Geezer as the bus pulls away. “God help me,” the duffer cries. A kid on a motorized bike slows to observe the feasting doggies. It’s like a urban jungle scene from National Geographic….All I can think is what a hungry old world this is we live in…

I awake feeling pretty good

Spring’s in the air. I’ve been working on Scruffy. Getting him fixed up with the help of my pal, Dirk. Yesterday I got the water pump going and suddenly all the spigots work, including the shower.

The bilge is bone dry.

Dirk had nothing to do with it. The water pump was never broken in the first place. All I had to do was re-attach a red wire.

The thing is, Dirk is handy. He can fix stuff. He shows up. I give him some free booze. He hangs around. Magically, shit comes together. The water pump I simply connected and it starts whirr’n. It whirrs for a while and peters out. “Wait a minute. It stopped. It was working a second ago.”

“It stopped,” Dirk says, “because your lines are pressurized. That’s good.”

Pressurized with no leaks. Nice. I’m following Dirk around the boat. He attaches a pair of tiny sliding doors in the bathroom. Cabinet doors I struggled with like a Chinese Box. Dirk put em together like it’s no big deal. Shit. See what I mean? Magic! I give Dirk a couple mondo bottles of Irish Whiskey. Old Scruffy is coming along like…like…like a old friggin Timer’s boat.

I fire up the engines. Twin Diesels. They rattle like brand new Diesels!

“Man, those Diesels sound good.” Dirk says.

I’m feeling good about my Diesels, thanks to Dirk.

And the toilet. Suddenly I got both the toilets working. “Sani-flush,” Dirk says. “Just like my boat. Your aft toilet is nice .”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s a quality toilet….”

“Wow. I never knew that.”

Another reason I’m feeling pretty good

Tim gifted me his camper van. I’m thinking how having a retro van to go with my retro boat makes me THE RETRO MAN.

Being THE RETRO MAN makes me feel not just grateful but good all over.

It is important to feel good about yourself. Especially as an Old Dude. You don’t necessarily need to have a lot of things to feel good about yourself. Just certain things.

Say you’re a cowboy back in the wild west. Say you’ve got a horse and a good saddle. What else do you need?

A Winchester Rifle.

That’s all you need. You need a healthy horse. You need a Saddle that fits. And the gun…you need bullets to make the gun shoot.

Long as you got all that, you’re doing pretty damned good.

Billy The Kid with his Winchester Rifle.

I’m talking here about the Original Wild West.

Not necessarily the Van Life Wild West.

I forgot the point I was trying to make. Oh, yeah! I’m feeling pretty good this morning. Why? I don’t remember. I do remember the dream I had about the killer Chihuahuas. What the hell was that all about? Jesus. I need to get a handle on my lid.

Hackers rip into Joan’s accounts

I get a call from Joan, my trumpy girlfriend. She’s distraught. Not about Trump. Trump’s on trial but this is not what concerns her at the moment. Her fidelity account’s been compromised. She got the call this morning from the security people. “They hacked into my router.”

“Who?”

“The Hackers. The Fidelity Security people say I need to shut everything down while they build a firewall. They say other people using my internet may be affected. This could concern you!”

Joan’s got a fat investment portfolio on her computer. Money all over the place. All of it prey to fiendish little Hack Men. Evil bastards like the killer Chihuahuas.

I got nothing on my computer. Nothing but this blog which would only confuse a would-be Hacker. Ward them off. Leave them thinking…..whaaa?

Okay, fine. I’m good with having nothing. Nothing the Hackers could steal. Nothing but Scruffy. How they gonna steal Scruffy? He’s not on a computer. He’s like a big ass floating rock.

They aint gonna bother with Scruffy. They could steal my OTHER prized possession. But my Retro Van is not available to be hacked, either. It too does not exist on a computer. It’s a real world object.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. I got nothing to steal.

What else I got?

“Well, you should watch out anyway,” Joan says.

The security people say they need to build a firewall. They say it could take a day or more.

I smell a rat

These security people been asking her all kinds of questions.

Other people using her internet?

What’s that got to do with anything?

I’m wary of anybody asking questions. A person asks questions, they don’t necessarily want to know anything so much as they want something. At least that’s been my experience in life. Somebody starts asking me questions my first reaction is to hang up or tell them to go fuck themselves.

So with Joan, the first thing I do after I hang up is Google can your internet be hacked. And what do you know. Turns out it can be Hacked. So maybe these security people are legit.

But how come it takes all this time to build a firewall?

Another distraught call

I’m sitting here on Scruffy. Enjoying the late afternoon. My two Gulls showed up for a handout. But not the Peeper.

The Peeper is gone forever….

The Peeper he don’t come around no more. On account of his parents chased him off. Scruffy is now off limits to the Peeper. He joins the ranks of all the other seagulls his parents chase off. His father and mother have always owned my boat and no other seagulls can come around begging scraps. Including their own son (or daughter) Peeper. Just the other day I watched them tear into his big ass. It only took a couple times to get the message across to him. That’s all it took. He stays away now. Leaving my space to his parents. This is how it works in the Sea Gull world. Once you reach a certain age your parents dump your ass…forever.

That’s right. You are done and gone.

I’m thinking there are benefits to this Gull family method. For the parents especially.. For one thing, you no longer need to put up with deadbeat children living at home. You no longer need to gather for holidays. It’s just you and your spouse. This dispenses with most of the Drama of family life. But what about the love?

I’m thinking love is highly overrated.

Think how much money you save on Birthdays and Funerals.

Anyway, what the fuck was I talking about before I got off on this tangent?

Oh, yeah. The second distraught call.

Turns out my dream was a kind of premonition.

I get another call from Joan.

“All my accounts are blocked,” she cries. “Even my bank account. I can’t get at my savings. I have no money!”

“The Hackers stole your money?”

“They made a money transfer. Sold some stock. Luckily they caught it in time.”

“The Security people?”

“The security people were con men! I was alerted by my Swab people. The con men sold some of my stock. Swab blocked it in time. But now everything is locked down.”

“I knew it. I smelled a rat. I had a premonition!”

“A what?”

I tell her about my dream.

“Are you out of your mind? I’m discussing a serious problem here and you…”

“No, no, you don’t understand.”

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t make trades. They say I need have my computer scrubbed before they’ll let me access my accounts. What I pay to have it scrubbed I could buy a new computer.”

“So buy a new computer.”

“Oh, that’s easy for you to say. I have no cash! They blocked all my accounts!”

But I have cash.

A wad of cash stuffed in a coffee can.

I tell her to take the cash from my coffee can and buy herself a computer. Pay me back when they open her accounts. This makes her happy.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course.”

Long as I get paid back.

What do I need the Cash for? I don’t know. I just need it. Like in case a pack of crazed chihuahuas come for my ass. Or maybe I just like cash instead of money market accounts.

It’s good to have cash when you live your life as a RETRO MAN.

Anyway, I don’t like having other people handle my valuables. I could get hacked. You could get hacked. Both of Joan’s neighbors have been Hacked. Poor Sharon she lives two doors down from Joan. The Fraudsters took her for forty grand.

Like crazed little dogs they ripped into her.

I’m the RETRO MAN. They aint gonna get at me.

I have other concerns.

Like what to make of all these crazy ass dreams I’ve been having.