Shh, I'm Trying to Sleep

I'm not a morning person.

 

The alarm going off is like screw driver plunging into my ear.

The alarm is jarring like when I was married and the wife would pop a peaceful moment with a safety pin by asking, "What are you thinking about?" and I had to catch myself before I said "Elle McPherson".

It's like I'm a baby seal and the alarm is a hunter with a club.

The alarm going off some mornings frightens me. I slap at the clock while my heart beats with the rhythm of a Motorhead song. By the time I finally get the alarm off by dropping it into an industrial grinder, I'm halfway on the floor with my heart in my throat like an undigested piece of pork chop from supper the night before.

I am not a morning person.

When the sky is still dark then I should be staring at the inside of my eyelids, not at my bedroom ceiling wondering if that spot just moved.

I should not have to look at my clock until the first number is at least an 8. If I'm seeing a 6 or less my brain is still a soup of half-remembered dreams, lyrics from that song I heard at lunch time yesterday and the invention I came up with when I was 23 for a car whose glove box is refrigerated to hold a selection of cheeses and Italian luncheon meats.

Morning and I are not friends. I don't go to its birthday parties and it doesn't come to my poker night. When the clock strikes noon morning sneers one last look of contempt at me and I flip it the bird. We are in our neutral corners for the rest of the day.

I am not a morning person and morning is not me.

Sleep, Perchance to Sleep Some More

Sleep and I used to have a solid relationship. I worked one job, day work, got home around 5 or 6, ate dinner, watched TV, then went to bed and got my needed 8 hours. Weekends came along and Sleep would slip me an extra hour or two with a wink and a nod. I never took her for granted and she was always there for me. But 2 years ago I had to take new jobs. I started working second shift with another in the early morning. My relationship with Sleep hasn’t been the same since.

I remember that first night getting off at midnight. I poured myself into the car, exhausted, my muscles heavy with fatigue. Sleep drove me home but she took me the long way, by the lake. When we reached the inlet she opened the door and pushed me out, leaving me for dead in the shallow water.

I survived the bitch’s attack. I wanted to recover and return strong like Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars. I was going to show Sleep I didn’t need her. But all my brave talk couldn’t stand up to the rigors of the hours. It was only a few weeks before I was dreaming of death as if I were in the third act of a Shakespeare tragedy.

I was barely getting 6 hours a night. That’s enough for some people. There are folks who only have a casual, friends-with-benefits relationship with sleep. But I needed a commitment. I needed 8 hours a day. I wasn’t going to call her though, not after what she had done to me.

I tried the usual tricks to stay awake like consuming copious amounts of sugar and caffeine while working at night. All that happened was I gained 15 pounds, started seeing a snow shower of glittering lights everywhere I went and believed I was a small woodland creature named Frisky Fritters.

Sleep taunted me. She knew I was jonesing bad. When I would get home from my second job in the morning I’d see her standing across the street in a French maid’s outfit dusting telephone poles which even in my weakened condition I knew was ridiculous. You don’t dust telephone poles; you give them a nice sheen with a can of Pledge. Come one, I know I was tired but I wasn’t a fool.

The lingerie didn’t work so she’s started calling and leaving messages on my answering machine. They’re sexy entreaties to the wonderland of REM sleep and dreams of 13 inch memory foam mattresses with 1500 count Egyptian cotton sheets and full body pillows. I haven’t answered her siren song yet but her voice is so mellifluous; it envelopes me in a cloud. A soft, white, fluffy, drifting cloud that . . .zzzzzzzzzzzz

An Essay: How to Keep Your Owner Awake When He Desperately Needs Sleep by Phantom T. Cat

The first thing you do, and this will take days if not weeks of preparation, is get a urinary tract infection which causes you to have trouble controlling your bladder. Then you pee on his bed once or twice which makes him completely paranoid that every time you jump onto the bed you’re going to pee again.

Now, let’s say your owner has 2 jobs, one of them being a paper route. Let’s say he normally uses the weekend to catch up on his sleep, but this past Sunday he got up early to go to church and now he’s going to bed early Sunday evening hoping to get a few extra hours of sleep. You wait until he’s settled then you jump on the bed. This simple act keeps him awake because he’s worried you’re going to pee. The next thing you do is go down to the end of the bed and sit on the right side, moving around as much as possible. I start off by cleaning myself vigorously top to bottom so that I am in constant motion.

After a few minutes I decide the right side of the bed isn’t comfortable anymore and move to the left side. The left side isn’t quite right either so I move to the center. This of course isn’t right as well so I go back to the left, then the right, center, left, right, left, center, left, center, left, right, left, center, right, left, right, left, center and right before jumping off the bed entirely.

Wander aimlessly around for no more than 10 minutes then jump back on the bed and do the whole left-right-center three step again. He’ll be relaxing a bit because he’s so tired so now is when you walk up, stand on the pillow next to his head, put your butt in his face and meow for no apparent reason. After you get shoved down to the end of the bed, lie down and clean the area he just touched, throwing in a few indignant meows for good measure. Then stand up in a huff and jump off the bed.

You’re ready for something new now. Wait about 15 minutes, just when he’s finally starting to drift off to sleep, and then you get onto the night stand and leap from there to the center of the bed bringing your entire 15 pound weight down as heavily as you can. A string of curse words will follow and a hand may sweep out at you as you run to the end of the bed.

Once you’re at the foot of the bed, return to the left-right-center gambit one more time, but only for a minute or two or you may find yourself with a foot in your backside. Now it’s time for the piece de resistance. This time you’re going to leap from the bed to the nightstand, but you’re going to miscalculate the landing so that you crash to the floor making a racket causing your owner to jump out of bed and turn on the light. He will check for damage to the furniture and then ask you if you’re all right to which you reply, “Of course, I meant to do that.”

More curse words will follow but at this point your job is done. You’ve caused him to get little or no sleep for the past 3 hours and now he has only 2 more hours before he has to get up. Being the compassionate kitty that you are, you can now crawl onto the bed and go to sleep comfortably allowing him those 2 precious hours.