In a dream last night, I was working as a basic office flunky for Donald Trump. It was pre-politics Trump, when he was just an empty-headed billionaire blowhard, not yet an existential threat to democracy, the environment, the economy, and the life of any random person anywhere.
Trump employed me to do basic data-entry and corrections, but my direct supervisor was a faceless suit, as was his supervisor, and his supervisor’s supervisor. We rarely saw Mr Trump, but on the day of my dream, he pranced into the office and directly to my desk, where he held two tennis balls, one in each of his tiny hands. One ball was light greenish-yellow, the standard color of tennis balls these days, and the other ball had a world globe printed on it.
“Holland, drop whatever you’re doing,” Trump said too loudly. “See my balls? They’re sold at my Trump Sporting Goods store at 75th Street & Grunion Ave, but on the rack the global balls are above the basic balls. You’re going to go to the store, and put the global balls under the basic balls.”
This was an idiotic assignment, of course. He could’ve called the store and barked his command into the phone, and the display would’ve been changed within minutes. But it wasn’t the dumbest chore I’d ever been given. Outside this dream, I spent 40 years as office flunky for dozens of companies, and much of the work made less sense than rearranging Donald Trump’s balls.
Our office was a mile from the store, so it might take an hour, or longer if there were lots of Trump’s balls to hoist from one basket to another. It was a pleasant enough day, though, so I shrugged and said, “Yes, Mr Trump,” and walked to the store.
The walk was the best part of the dream, just being out of the office, barked at and barking back at dogs along my way, watching pretty women walk by in summer dresses, and daydreaming within this night dream.
At the store’s tennis ball display, I moved about a thousand basic balls to the upper shelf and a thousand global balls to the lower shelf, and thought about how stupid it was to be doing this. Not only was it not my job, but just from a marketing perspective, why display plain tennis balls you could buy anywhere more prominently than the fancy balls?
But what the hell, I did as instructed, and then un-snapped and re-snapped the price display to properly match the product on the shelves, and introduced myself to the store manager, and explained that I’d made the switch at Trump’s request, so she wouldn’t immediately have the balls moved back to the bins they’d been in before.
Having finished my work, I whistled the theme from Gilligan’s Island as I walked back to the office, where Trump was fuming.
“You’ve been gone an hour, wasting my time and wages, so you’re fired.” He said it like I’d been a contestant on The Apprentice.
“I walked,” I said.
“You walked?” He was incredulous, almost offended, like most people if I tell them I don’t drive a car.
“Yup. I always walk or take the bus, Mr Trump, like I told you in my job interview.” The interview had not been part of this Donald Trump Cinematic Dream Universe, but “Fired,” he’d said, so fired I was. Nobody talks Donald Trump into changing his mind, and I was cleaning stuff out of my desk when I woke and needed to pee.
♦ ♦ ♦
I peed sitting down, scribbling what I remembered from the dream while dripping into the toilet. An hour later, typing the dream, I realized that my boss had young Donald Trump’s face, but in behavior and management style he was actually young Jim Houston.
Mr Houston — that’s what employees were supposed to call him — was a plump, well-dressed, middle-aged white dude who owned Jim Houston Ford. I’d been one of his office flunkies, in the early 1980s.
He was smarter than Trump, but at least as dishonest — every month’s profit & loss sheet was fudged and re-fudged until the company was profitable, and I’m not sure the company was ever actually profitable. The co-owner of Jim Houston Ford, but not Mr Houston himself, was eventually sent to White Collar Prison for the financial statements’ falsifications, because Mr Houston, like Mr Trump, was willing to implicate others for his crimes.
All these years later, it strikes me that Mr Houston probably would’ve voted for Mr Trump. They had a lot in common. Mr Houston had a mercurial temper, and issued orders like a military commander, expecting immediate obedience. If he thought you’d made a mistake, he’d berate and insult you in front of everyone. Once, for reasons unknown to me, Mr Houston was angry at the service manager, and had him detail cars for a month, presumably just to see whether he’d quit.
For whatever reason, though, Mr Houston liked me, and I kinda liked him too. He had no sense of humor, but was often unintentionally funny, playing the role of Brilliant Businessman, which he wasn’t. Working for him was more entertaining than most work, and unlike Mr Trump, Mr Houston’s kingdom was only a car dealership, so he couldn’t do much real damage to the world.
Best of all, when he was especially pleased with my work, Mr Houston sometimes let me borrow my choice from his collection of a dozen beautifully-restored 1960s Ford Mustangs. Back then I drove a car, and when I showed up for a date with my girlfriend driving a classy classic pristine ’65 Mustang instead of my beat-up old Subaru with last week’s milk shakes and burger wrappers in the back, it always led to a blowjob in the driver’s seat. I wiped away any spills, and said “Thank you, Mr Houston” in the morning.
Whether this backstory about Mr Houston adds anything to the dream about Mr Trump is for you to decide, dear reader, and if you regret the few minutes of attention you’ve given this stupid essay, you’re invited to rearrange my balls.
7/28/2026
Leave a Reply