Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The Matrix and Toothpaste

Our area of the country received 6” of snow on Saturday afternoon.  As a result of this, our family was at the mercy of the weather and any plans we had for Saturday were replaced with staying in the house and entertaining ourselves.  I had recently purchased Mary Poppins on DVD and the daughter and wife wanted to watch it.  The son and I were wanting a little more action so we chose to watch The Matrix instead.  I left the home theater PC and 32” TV screen to the womenfolk and the son and I grabbed his laptop, the 19” computer monitor and the speakers and set up shop in his room.  Both movies are about 2 hours in length so we closed ourselves in and settled down for the movie.

We had seen this move a while back but I bought a copy of the DVD around Christmas time at my favorite pawn shop for $2.  We started to watch the movie once or twice in January but for whatever reason were not able to finish it.  If you are familiar with the movie at all then you know the premise and might understand why it took us closer to 3 hours to watch it as I had to pause the movie in several places to explain the movie to my (12) year old son.  To try to grasp the concept that we might all be living in a dream that we cannot wake up from is a little much for his mind but he did a pretty good job with my added explanation to help him out.  In one scene, Agent Smith is explaining to Neo why the first matrix failed.  Basically things were too perfect and not enough bad things happened in the dream thereby tipping off the brains that were in the dreams into thinking that this could not be real and thus had to be a dream.  We paused the movie for a long time in this section and discussed our own dreams.  Some dreams you know are dreams.  You are a riding a flying kangaroo or you are living with a different family for no apparent reason.  You sort of know during the dream and after waking up that it was obviously a dream.  Other dreams however have everything in place and nothing seems out of place.  These you do not know are a dream until you wake up.  With this concept fully digested we moved on to the movie.  I bought the 2nd and 3rd movies in the series (same pawn shop, same $2 bargain price) so I imagine those will take 3 hours to get through as well.

Very soon after that I had a dream.  The dream was one of those where you do not realize that you are in a dream until you wake up.  Nothing seemed out of sort.  There is just one problem.  In this dream the wife had replaced our normal toothpaste with something a little less conventional.

Now, I have blogged before about the various toothpastes that we have tried.  Our current brand is actually made by Burt’s Bees but try as I might I could not find the product listed on their website (I did find a review though just to prove to you that this product exists).  Anyway, my point is that we have not had “normal” toothpaste in quite a few years and I am seldom shocked by whatever brand (or flavor) turns up on the bathroom sink when we are near the end of the current tube.

OK, back to the dream.  The new toothpaste the wife was having me use was actually Preparation H!  This seems absurd to an outsider to our immediate family but I am telling you that I would NOT be surprised (and neither would the kids) if the wife stumbled upon some study or article somewhere that praised this product and its use in keeping our teeth healthy.  I am telling you!  This could happen in my household!  And let me remind you that this did not seem odd (even in the least) bit in my dream!

Anyway, I woke from the dream and was relieved that the Burt’s Bees toothpaste was still on the sink.  It is getting pretty empty though so I am bracing for the worst and hoping that my dream is not prophetic.

Jon

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