I met some old friends for dinner a few weeks ago.

She now works out at a local community college, pounding math into the heads of folks who are still under the delusion that they already know everything, years and years away from discovering that none of us have the sense that God gave a billy goat, something that’s especially true of those of us who think we’ve got a leg up on the rest of the world.

And he works for the Sheriff’s department, and has so for nearly fifteen years. The years he has spent there are the very source of the countless stories he’s told at the request of friends and family at gatherings, stories that he’s recently spun into screenplays that he hopes will eventually become a sitcom broadcast straight into your living rooms. And yes, he’s quite serious about this comedy.

So when we met, he and I came prepared, our arms laden with our writings. I handed him two folders stuffed with pages and pages of my printed mishmash, some of them I’d bothered to organize with the assistance of a misfiring stapler. In return, he handed me the script for his pilot episode, neatly bound and purposefully formatted, so professionally packaged that my folders seemed like nothing more than toddler scribblings on freshly painted walls.

And she with one folder, he with the other, and me with the pilot episode, between sips and chips, we read. They laughed, perhaps politely, at what I’d given them and then she asked the question I should, by now, be able to answer. This question, however, always paralyzes my tongue to the extent that my previous responses have amounted to nothing more than articulated drool.

“Where do you see yourself going with this?” Oh she smiled when she said it, so I don’t think she meant to be critical, perhaps she was going to give me direction.

So I fumbled before I came up with my first, ever, oh-so clever response: “I don’t know.”

She pressed further. “Well, who do you think you’re like?”

Now that’s an easier question to answer. My writing, I think of it as smart, sexy, Southern, and perhaps feminine. So of course I said, “Andy Rooney.”

They agreed. Far too quickly, they agreed.

Obviously in need of a change of subject, I began questioning him, about his writings, the motivations behind his comedy. And he gave me some answers, answers I’ve since forgotten, answers that were likely the heart and soul of him, his art. I really was listening, but I admittedly lost focus at some point, perhaps when he told me how much sitcom writers on the leftcoast make. Yeah, I think that’s precisely when I tuned out.

You see, the second the air behind his words rushed to my side of the table, off blew my naiveté, swept up and hurled off to regions far beyond, gone were my long-held and cherished beliefs regarding the artist, the long-suffering artist, the one willing to sacrifice his body, his family, and all earthly niceties for his precious art. Hah! I now understand that’s about as quixotic as the dream of finding a teenager with a clean room.

He was likely droning on and on about writing, blah, blah, blah, but I was lost in my thoughts, my fantasy of how I could live, how I should live. And with his voice in the background, I busied my thoughts with putting together my entourage, the one I think those making that kind of cash likely have.

Gwenn could be my nail girl. She doesn’t really do nails, though, but that will work out just fine since I don’t have my nails done anyway. But I’ll need a nail girl. Thus it will likely be her main task to talk to me about people I don’t know, people I don’t care about. She’s good at that.

And the woman I work with, she could be the person who ignores the ringing phone and who eats all of my food then swings from the refrigerator door complaining that there’s nothing to eat. Judging from how she is at the office, she is very well qualified for such. This position, however, is currently filled by my son, but considering the cost of orthodontia, cd’s, concert tickets, guitars, and amps, I think I can save money by outsourcing this job. And if I throw in a job requirement of basic personal hygiene, you know, like brushing your teeth and wearing deodorant, well, my son just won't qualify for the position any longer.

And this man at work, he’s already offered to be my driver. He knows I walk almost everywhere, so I think his reasoning for so generously volunteering for such is that to which he admitted: to make his way to the drive-thru. I really think he was being nothing but honest when he said, “You can’t expect me to eat that organic shit you’ll have around, can you? But Jesus, please don't make me drive a fucking hybrid to the McDonald's...”

The position for my goon, however, will be more difficult to fill. I know I’ll need some big guy to stand silently next to the door, arms folded across his well-toned mid-section, but I’m having a really hard time coming up with the right candidate for the position. I mean, I do know someone, a big guy, big enough to scare off the bad folks, but I suspect he’ll want to sit on the good furniture and we already know that that’s a big no-no for a goon. Moreover, I already know him to be quite adept at saying the most inappropriate things at the most inopportune times so there’s no doubt I’ll have to fire him.

Wow, I even have problems in my fantasy life. That’s pretty sad.

But instead of worrying, though, I guess I need to get back in touch with those friends, to warn them. After having read the pilot for his sitcom, the one based on those very real characters splattered around the county, I think they’ll really be having these kinds of problems very soon.