A Good Night's Sleep

Your specifics may be different, but perhaps some of you can relate…

Last night:

Between midnight and 1:00 a.m.:  After spending too long looking at Pinterest, head to bed.

Between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m.:  Quit reading book review book, turn out light, and go to sleep.

Approximately 2:50 a.m.:  Become aware that there is some sort of repetitive, scuffling noise in the hallway. Investigate.  Rosie (one of our cats), is engaged in what appears to be a hunting mission involving some small, unseen creature who is apparently behind or beneath an unsteady stack of file folders, pocket folders, binders, and notebook paper that has been sitting ”temporarily” on a cart in the hallway for the last thirteen years.  Blinking owlishly at overhead light, stand in hallway for several minutes debating what to do.  Try to flush out the critter?  (Probably a mouse—probably, in fact, the source of a rustling that I heard in a nearby closet earlier in the day and which I tried to convince myself was just the floor creaking as I stepped on it.)  Arm myself with a flashlight, proper shoes (the thought of a mouse running across my bare toes is too horrible to imagine), and a broom?  Ignore the whole spectacle and return to bed, hoping that it will all go away?

3:00 a.m.:  Ignore it is.  Return to bed, latching door for good measure.  Que sera, sera.  Comfort self that at least any rodent bloodshed will occur out of sight and earshot.  Hopefully.

3:15 a.m.:  Sniffly, germ-laden child materializes in disconcerting way beside bed and informs me that she can’t sleep and in fact has not really been asleep AT ALL in the several hours since I left her.   Ply her with snacks and allow her to get into bed with me.  Cats, who have been shut out of bedroom due to vermin situation, now eagerly converge onto the bed, pinning our splayed limbs in various uncomfortable positions.  Tippy in particular makes it clear, through repeated and imploring vocalizations, that his exile from the bedroom has been most unwelcome.  Push Tippy off the bed.

3:30 a.m.:  Drifting off into a pleasantly anxiety-free slumber, am awakened once more by child announcing that she has decided to return to her own bed.   Agree that this is best and roll over, enjoying the luxurious feeling of now having plenty of leg room.  Two cats fall to the floor in the process.

3:45 a.m.:   Finally get to sleep.

4:38 a.m.:  Awake to puzzling silence to discover that power has gone off, thus rendering both white noise machine and alarm clock ineffective.  Muttering incoherently, get up and scrabble for flashlight, knocking an empty sticky roller to the floor with an echoing clatter.  Step on empty sticky roller.   Find flashlight, turn it on, stumble out to living room to retrieve phone in order to not be late for work in the morning.  Wait.  It IS morning.  Sigh loudly.  Phone light flashes annoyingly.  Shove phone halfway under pillow.

4:45 a.m.:  Power returns.  White noise machine whirs to life.  Now clock blinks annoyingly.  Reset clock and alarm.  Use light from phone to make sure that clock is being set to “a.m.” and not “p.m.”  Shove phone back under pillow.  Go.  To.  Sleep.

7:15 a.m.:  Alarm goes off.  Rise and shine!