Sleepless In Glen Burnie

I’m not sure when or why it started. But a good night’s sleep is something that evades me like a Mega-Millions jackpot. During this time, I’ve become quite the connoisseur of many of popular sleep remedies. I’ve tried everything from Tylenol PM to Lunesta. My personal favorite is a Percocet with a Ny-Quil chaser. Sometimes they work, but more often, they just make me comfortably numb.

So, during the course of the day, I usually feel like I’m in a daze. I always hope to catch a quick nap somewhere, but it hardly ever works out. The only place that I can ever seem to catch a few ZZZZ’s is in my car. But those damned rumble strips always ruin it for me.

On the rare occasion when I actually fall into a deep sleep, something will inevitably disrupt it. If it’s not Tina’s snoring (which she’ll forever deny), it’s her crazy cat pouncing on me in the middle of the night. Just this past weekend, surprisingly, I was sound asleep about 4:00 in the morning. But out of nowhere, I spontaneously jumped up out of bed with a sharp pain in the bottom of my left foot. Of course, Tina wakes up and asks, “What the hell is wrong with you??”

It took me a about a minute to clear my head, and then I yelled, “Something bit me! Damn!”

I didn’t have to look far to see the culprit. There’s one of our cats all sprawled out at the foot of the bed. While I’m hopping around in pain and cursing, the little bastard is acting like nothing happened. This pisses me off even more! And in spite of my obvious pain, Tina immediately comes to the defense of the cat. I had to show her the two puncture marks on the bottom of my foot to prove that I did indeed get bit. Even then, she still says, “Well, you probably had your foot in his face. That's what you get.” (And people wonder why I drink!)

When we had Rocky (our German Shepherd), he would often wake me with his loud bark at all hours of the night. If that wasn’t bad enough, one of our neighbors frequently walked his large dog starting around 6:00 in the morning (even on the weekends). So, like clockwork, every morning Rocky would barrel down the hallway crashing into everything he passed and then he would hurl himself down the steps into the foyer. Then, he would practically tear the door down trying to get out. Before long, I would be yelling "Knock it off!" Then Tina would yell at me for waking her up (Of course, the dog going ballistic on the front door had nothing to do with it). Between the three of us, it sounded like a bad episode of Cops! Rip Van Winkle couldn’t have slept through this commotion!

Oh yeah, another thing.....Tina will often forget to charge her cell phone. When the battery gets low, it will chirp like a cricket. Yep, the battery always decides to go dead around 2:00 in the morning.

Another time, I woke up in the middle of the night and freaked out because there was a strange arm nestled under my head. Tina was several feet away from me, so it couldn’t have been her arm. So, like an idiot, I start to push and poke at it but there’s no reaction. As I regained my senses, I realized that it was actually my arm. It had gone numb from my head lying on it. So, I get up and start swinging it like an elephant might swing his trunk. When this doesn’t “wake it up”, I go into a full windmill motion. I looked like Pete Townsend of The Who!

Tina slowly wakes up, rubs her eyes and says, “Are you out of your mind? What are you doing??”

I just tell her, “It’s hot and I’m trying to circulate some air. Now, go back to sleep and don't worry about it.”

I don’t have any luck when it comes to sleep. Some people could sleep through a hurricane. Me? It takes a bottle of sleeping pills and a Woody Allen movie!

KW