There are dream jobs and then there are jobs that are so beyond anything you’ve ever imagined that every minute feels like pure fantasy. That’s the kind of job I landed when I was 26 years old.

Calling it a dream job is inaccurate because, in 2006, I didn't even know that writing professional wrestling was even a position someone could have. Let alone someone like me, with nothing more than a paltry handful of MTV production assistant credits to my name. How was it possible my work on a Britney Spears clip special landed me on the third floor of WWE's Titan Tower headquarters in Stamford, Conn. ready to meet some of the most important people in pro wrestling?

Upon entering the office—carpeted wall-to-wall in a shag so blood red it could've been modeled after Stone Cold Steve Austin's WrestleMania 13 look—I was greeted by two of the most iconic voices in the history of the squared circle. One, a rasp. The other, a lisp. Both belonging to ex-wrestler consultants placed on the creative team to keep an eye on the physicality of the matches WWE writers were booking. (And to constantly remind the young, nerdy, virgin writers that they “ain’t never laced up a pair of boots in their worthless lives!”)

“Hey, I’m Michael. Nice to meet you,” rasped a middle-aged, mulleted man in Zubaz pants cinched mid-beer belly by a bursting-at-the-seams fanny pack. It was Michael P.S. Hayes of the legendary southern tag team the Fabulous Freebirds. I shook his hand and tried to contain my excitement, knowing it was the very same one used to pummel the Von Erich brothers nearly every Saturday afternoon of my childhood.

Then came the lisp, which sounded the same directed at me in a cramped writer's room as it did when it was directed at Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen and blaring from the TV in my childhood bedroom. It was “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, and he was greeting me as the newest member of the WWE creative team. “Hey kid, I’m Dusty. You can call me 'Dream'…but only if you buy my DVD!” He literally promoted his DVD box set within the first minute of our meeting.

This is it. This is my dream job. Dusty Rhodes just cut a promo on me! Holy shit!