While listening to a song this morning Clara asked me how it was possible to “make someone’s dreams come true”. A good question, I believe, and a frightening thought if it were to be taken literally. So, I explained the difference between a dream when you are asleep and a dream when you are awake. Then I asked her what she would dream about being, doing or having in the future. She thought for a long time then made her decision.

“I would want to have a big machine. And on this machine there would be lots of buttons. If you pushed one of the buttons the machine would make candy that you could give to your friends. And then there would be another button that would make cake and ice cream.” At this point she trailed off and her eyes glazed over and her dream, no doubt, turned into an actual dream.

They laughed at Henry Ford’s vision of a world full of affordable motorized transport, and Thomas Edison’s vision of a world full of brightly lit streets at night. Someday, we shall all meet and join hands in the center of town and watch as a young woman with curly black hair presses the button on the very first cake and ice cream machine. Nations shall unite in the universal love of frosted cake with candy flowers. Never again will a child accomplish even the simplest victory without being rewarded with copious and abundant ice cream. Communities will come together handing out forks to every citizen young to old, and approach the machine, singing, laughing, sharing in life, sharing in love. Never before has a dream been so sweet, and a life goal so worthy.

Then she had a thought and turned back to me and said, “Oh wait! Nevermind, instead, I would like for the radio in my bedroom to be fixed.”

Oh good. Because that’s what I bought you for Christmas, and it was much cheaper.