Mrs. Frump had a dream.
Sometimes, when she walked down the street, she mumbled parts of it to herself, ignoring, as she had long ago trained herself to do, the stares of those around her. It was on the street that some of the nicest additions to her dream came to her.
Sometimes, she sat down on a corner, in an alley or wherever it was comfortable. Once in a while, somebody asked if she was in need of assistance. Of course not; it’s just that, sometimes, our most beautiful dreams overwhelm us.
This is how it went:
Mrs. Frump is sitting in a deck chair on a simply huge luxury liner. She is wearing her over-large, ratty dark grey coat because, well, she had worn it every day for the past 30 years – rain or shine – and she was too used to having it on. She looks over at Mr. Frump, who sits next to her, smiles, runs a wrinkled hand as best she can through her thin, knotted hair and enjoys the sunshine.”
“Care for a champagne cocktail, Madame?” a waiter asks.
“Don’t mind if I do, sonny,” Mrs. Frump replies, taking a glass off the proffered tray. Ignoring Mr. Frump’s mildly disapproving gaze, Mrs. Frump delicately sips the champagne through yellowed teeth. After a couple of seconds, she reaches into one of the many bags at her side and takes out a dried piece of bread and a slightly green tomato.
“Just a little snack before lunch,” she assures her husband.
When the liner docks in London, Mr. and Mrs. Frump are greeted by Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth. “I hate to bother you on your vacation,” the Queen says, very apologetically, “but, there are urgent matters of State on which I need advice, and you seemed the most logical people to whom I could turn…”
To whom I could turn.
Mr. and Mrs. Frump are whisked away from the dock for an important meeting with the Queen and her top advisers, not even having to send their bags through Customs. “I don’t care what anybody else says,” Mrs. Frump tells her husband, “but the Queen will always be Canada’s first lady.”
In her dream, Mr. Frump usually agrees wholeheartedly. In reality, somebody yelled, “Get off the street, you bum!”
Mrs. Frump looked around, somewhat confused. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, grandma,” a young kid in torn jeans shouted. For emphasis, he threw a rock at her.
Without a word, Mrs. Frump picked up her bags and rushed to the pathetic hovel which she and Mr. Frump used for shelter when the weather was bad. Of course, this being Canada, the weather was bad a substantial amount of the year. By the time she got there, Mrs. Frump was out of breath.
Mr. Frump, sitting on a tattered couch in front of a small black and white television set, turned to face her. “You look all geshvitzed,” he said. “Come and sit by me. We’ll watch some TV together…”
“I might,” Mrs. Frump replied, not without affection, “if you would fix the set.”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” Mr. Frump reminded her, although it wasn’t necessary. “No electricity here, anyway.”
Mrs. Frump set her bags down in the middle of the room. “Is it Thursday yet?” she asked. Thursday was the day Mr. and Mrs. Frump pooled the money they had found during the week and bought what necessities they could.
“Yeah,” Mr. Frump said.
“How much you got?” Mrs. Frump asked.
“Two dollars and 13 cents,” Mr. Frump replied. “You?”
“Dollar ninety-eight,” Mrs. Frump admitted. “What do we need?”
Mr. Frump, who had long ago tired of this routine, sighed. “Everything,” he said. After a pause, he broached the subject which had always caused them tension. “You know, we could get more food if we wouldn’t buy that ticket…”
Mrs. Frump pretended to pout, but it was just for effect. “Now, dear,” she insisted, “how else are we going to make all our dreams come true? You know there’s nothing we can do…”
They argued for a while, but the outcome was always the same: when Mr. and Mrs. Frump got to the checkout counter, there was a lottery ticket in the hands of one or the other. When it came right down to it, Mr. Frump had to admit that he had dreams of his own.
And, dreams were still free, or, at least, relatively inexpensive.