SWEET DREAMS

SWEET DREAMS

When woken suddenly from a sound sleep, do not assume to understand the circumstances surrounding you.

Strange things happen to a person in the middle of the night.  Sometimes there is insomnia and sometimes there are terrible dreams which cause you to place blame on your unsuspecting and innocent spouse.  This happens in the night when you wake and they are still asleep.  There are occasions of accusatory whacking of said partner for no good reason; but feeling better thereafter.  Thoughts are darker and more unfriendly during the middle of the night.  Everything looks better in the morning. 

On occasion a telephone will ring during the night in our home.  This is always for my husband and is usually the result of some computer crisis at his place of employment.  I am the one to hear it and answer it; and then I am the one to have trouble falling back to sleep subsequently.  Sometimes there are the more distant thuds- these come from my husband actually knocking on the door in the early morning hours, at least an hour before my alarm will try to summon me.  The thuds mean that my husband has locked himself out of the house during his attempt to rouse his sleepy head from bed and go to work.  I heard those thuds last night and responded as I always do.

In the darkness I began stumbling toward the sound of the knocking.  Falling more than walking down the stairs, I was imagining all the things I usually imagine.  Don’t knock again, you’re going to wake Aubrey…   Maybe we should hide a key outside…  We really need to fix his garage door opener… I flung open the door expecting to see my grateful husband.  Instead there was pure darkness, save the sweep of a flashlight over the slogan on the t-shirt in which I chose to sleep.  “Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel” was what my t-shirt had to say.  Wondering why my husband was waving a flashlight at me, I was surprised to hear a strange and commanding male voice say, “Ma’m, Police here, did you know your garage door is open?”  Unable to comprehend this information while standing in my underwear with my hair sticking straight in the air in front of complete strangers; I began to assume that Jim had been waiting a very long time to be impatient enough to call the police. 

As realization slowly crept into my dream-cobwebbed head, I tried to say the sensible thing.  “I will close the garage door.”  The officer wasn’t satisfied with my response.  “I’m sorry but someone will need to come out and check to make sure everything is alright.  Again with my scholarly responses, “Okay, but I don’t have any pants.” 

I flew at breakneck speed back up to our bedroom and switching on the light was alarmed and relieved to discover my husband sleeping like a baby.  “Get up!  The police are here, our garage door is open and I don’t have any pants on!”   Now it was his turn to be mystified.  I slipped quickly into the safety of my bed and my poor husband hurriedly dressed to go and meet our helpful neighborhood watchmen. 

Along with a thorough search, they required his name, address and date of birth, assuring that he wasn’t holding the crazy woman without pants captive in the house.  All was well in the garage and finally the noisy police car, complete with deafening radio conversation left our driveway.  I’m sure all the neighbors were woken to the sights and sounds of what could only be a domestic complaint at the Shelly household….

It was nearly 3 hours before I rediscovered my sound sleep.  My mind was swirling with how stupid it is to fling open the door to an unknown visitor in the middle of the night.  It was an excellent reminder to check for my spouse before leaving the bed.  Never assume you know what is going on when first waking.  The knock at the door had come just after 1:00 a.m.  I’m still trying to convince myself that I’m thrilled to have our local police department watching out for our wellbeing.  But couldn’t they have simply closed the garage door and let the people without pants sleep?  Apparently not.