Plumbing and poetry

Last night, I was dreaming about the clogged toilet in our upstairs bathroom. I need to find a plumber to fix it, but when I called plumbers yesterday, I couldn’t find anyone available for at least three days.

I was annoyed. I didn’t want to wait three days.

Then, in my dream, it occurred to me that a plumber probably only needed to snake the toilet, and if I had a plumbing snake, I could probably do it myself. Then, still in my dream, I thought about which of my friends might own a plumbing snake. Then I realized that it’s probably an inexpensive tool that I should own myself. Then, still in my dream, I decided to visit Home Depot tomorrow and purchase one, provided I felt well enough.

I’ve been sick for the past three days. High fevers. Cough. But perhaps a quick trip to Home Depot would be possible.

Then, still in my dream, I realized that I could probably skip the trip to Home Depot altogether and order a plumbing snake on Amazon. In fact, if I ordered soon enough, it would probably be delivered by the next day. So, still in my dream, I told myself, “Wake up and place the order.”

So I did. I awoke, climbed out of bed, and ordered a plumber’s snake. It arrives today.

I told all of this to Elysha this morning.

Her reply:

“I dreamt about William Blake’s poem “The Tyger.” I was trying to remember all the lines from the poem.”

She memorized the poem – one of her favorites – long ago. About a decade ago, I did, too. Standing in the kitchen, we recited the poem in unison, correcting our errors along the way.

I thought the kids might be impressed with our performance, but they ignored us.

Two people – a married couple – sleeping side by side.

One was dreaming up solutions to a plumbing problem down the hall.

The other was reinforcing her memory of a poem published in 1794.

Even when we are sleeping, we get stuff done.

Very different kinds of stuff.