“You take Nancy, for me Loretta’s fine”

Last night I dreamed I was being slowly-yet-diligently pursued by an undead Nancy Reagan.

Now, I say Undead Nancy Reagan, but Nancy wasn’t gross or rotting or anything, as zombie symptoms can present.  No, she looked pretty much like she always did–red dress, pearls, what have you.  Regardless, in the dream I knew that she was undead because she never spoke a word, but, instead, doggedly pursued me at a pace slightly slower than walking–though never at anything approaching an undignified shamble.

Her face, during her leisurely hunt, remained a mask of resigned bemusement, as if she were stalking a stray jelly bean that had rolled out of Ronnie’s grasp, or perhaps an errant coffee stain left on a side-table in the East Room by, say, Casper Weinberger.  I knew with certainty, though, that if she were to ever catch up to me I would meet my end.  Perhaps she would bite me and then I too would become an Undead Nancy Reagan, forever cursed to stubbornly and with delicately measured steps, prowl after new victims.

I’m here to report that Undead Nancy Reagan was pretty easy to evade, though her tenacious trailing of me, as well as my hard rule against whacking former first ladies with a cricket bat, left me with little choice but to trap her in a series of rooms; only escaping through another door or a window, myself, when there was not space enough to otherwise slip past her.  And there she would remain for awhile–Undead Nancy Reagan trapped in a bathroom, or Undead Nancy Reagan trapped in a walk-in pantry. (When did I get a walk-in pantry, anyway?)

And life otherwise went on for me in the dream, and there were other dream-life concerns to attend to that did not involve the mother of “Just Say No” (and Patti and Ron Jr.)  But always in the back of my head was the knowledge that at any moment some fool was going to hear her scratching and let her out, and then once again I’d have to not-particularly-briskly flee from Undead Nancy Reagan.

I’m sure Walter Mondale used to have this dream, too.