Most dream stories people tell, or at least many of the ones I tell, contain minor embellishments here and there. This one, of a dream I had about five years ago, contains none. It involved sportswriter Rick Reilly, and I'm bringing it up because there's a new round of Reilly disdain burgeoning on Twitter at the moment.
I was preparing to start a bicycle race, and the sidewalks were crowded with onlookers. Rick Reilly walks out of the crowd, smiling, toting a traditional, unspectacular orange Jell-O mold. He said asked me if I knew who he was, and I told him that yes, I did. He asked me to try his Jell-O mold. I can't remember what he said verbatim, but he was very proud of it, and he was very happy to offer it to me. I explained to him that I was about to start the race, and that I couldn't. He frowned, and walked back into the crowd.
It was a long race that didn't end until the sun was setting. I was somewhere out in the suburbs, with new houses, immature trees, and a low horizon. I crossed the finish line and placed in... fifth or sixth, I think it was. And out pops Rick Reilly from the crowd, still clutching the Jell-O mold. He was even more adamant that I try it, and that's when I leveled with him: Rick Reilly, the truth is that I don't want to eat it. I don't think you made it well, and I don't think I'm going to like it.
His brow furrowed. It was the most vivid part of an unusually vivid dream: he was hurt. Truly, deeply damaged.
I should note a couple of things: I don't remember a ton of dreams, I rarely dream about public figures, and I've had no special or unique opinion of or connection with Rick Reilly. Like many of you, I read and enjoyed his back-page Sports Illustrated column when I was a kid, and like many of you, I'm not especially a fan anymore.
Regardless, it stands today as one of the very most real and bizarre dreams I have ever had. I am singularly incapable of ever actively disliking the man. He's about to cry.
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