An angel came to me in a dream after a bachelor party for my former college roommate that included tequila shooters and beer chasers. The angel wasn't a smiling, golden-haired beauty with a glowing halo and fluttering wings. Instead, this apparition looked like Woody Allen in leotards. Still, in my dream's Salvador Dali-like logic, I knew he was an angel.

"You deserve a reward," he said, in a nasal whine and an accent as distinctly New York as a thin-crust pizza. "You don't cheat on your wife, you treat others with respect and your cholesterol is down to 175."

So, he gave me God's personal telephone number.

"Write it down," he warned me. "I'm not coming back. These tights are chafing." He was pulling at himself like a 12-year-old boy watching a Britney Spears video.

In my dream, I wrote down the number on the back of my hand with a pen he gave me advertising Max's Deli, "Where angels meet for pastrami on rye."

Then with a handful of pixie dust, he did a pirouette, tripped, apologized for his fallen arches, and disappeared.

I woke up feeling like my tongue was super-glued to the roof of my mouth and my head had been used as a bowling ball.

But there it was on the back of my hand. A twelve-digit number preceded by a three-digit area code and a seven. I figured the number was someone from last night's idea of a joke. But just in case, I thought I'd make the call before I showered. Right after I downed a gallon of black coffee and spoke to my wife.

She had spent the night with her sister and I promised to call and assure her I was still alive, not being used to alcohol and testosterone in such quantities anymore. She said something about the three of us having lunch at the Middle Eastern buffet I like. "Maybe another time," I said, imagining myself drowning in a vat of baba ganoush. My skin was already that distinct yellow-tan color. "Enjoy it with your sister. I won't be eating for awhile."

She laughed. I tried not to vomit.

I studied the strange number scrawled on the back of my hand. It definitely looked like long distance, so I used my cell, since I have unlimited free minutes on weekends.