UHHHHHHHHHHH

The Wife:  "Did you sleep?"

I get up to this email EVERY day of the year.  I'm not sure how many of you have sleeping issues, but for Christ sake.  The thing about not being able to sleep is that you spend the entire day in a fog, and then there's really no chance to ever "catch up" on the sleep you missed since you can't sleep anyway.  It's stupid.  However, there are some pretty weird things that go on when you can't sleep that, if you can believe it, are really more annoying than simply the act of not being able to sleep.

GOING INSANE

It's absolutely nuts some of the shit that goes on in one's brain when they're running on two hours of sleep in 50 hours.  I'll be sitting laying in bed, and in 12th of a second in my brain will flash a picture of a cannon from the Civil War, a voice saying "The new year brings specials on microdermabrasion", an epiphany that if Bruce Jenner didn't look like such a ghoul and and Christopher Reeve wasn't dead, they'd look a lot alike...well, Jenner actually looks like Reeve probably does now anyway...and, of course, Justin Bieber.  Don't ask what Justin Bieber's doing in there.  It's not my fault. I'm exhausted from no sleep, remember?  NO I don't have a mancrush on the boy.  I hate him.  Sure his fresh skin and pouty lips reminds one of a young Bruce Jenner, but...wait a minute, do I have a mancrush on Bruce Jenner?  Jesus.  Moving on.

HEARING THINGS

I swear I put this picture in because it was actually appropriate for the category.  It had nothing to do with the low-cut dress or look in her eye that says, "Shaun, you hot black negro.  It's been awhile since I've had a hot black negro."  It simply has to do with the "hearing things" category.  So where was I.  Yes.  Hot black negro.  So when you can't sleep, you hear EVERY. SINGLE. SOUND.  EVER.  Two nights ago when I got two hours of sleep, on and off, I heard a really loud creaking in the attic.  I just kept staring above me, shit racing through my head. The thought process actually went like this:  I thought that maybe it was the wind.  Then I thought, shit, something's in the attic.  Then I thought, do we even have an attic? Then I thought, oh shit, the 1/2 inch of snow has collected on the roof and it's going to collapse.  Then I thought, you know, if the roof collapses, although we'd be out on the street, if we lucked out to survive, maybe it'd be totaled enough where insurance would pay it out and we'd be rid of this hunk of shit.  Then I thought I heard the creaking moving from one side to another, and that it was either a bunch of squirrels, or a ghost.  And for some reason I didn't sleep that night.

YOU HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT YOUR DEMISE

For some reason lying awake in bed is open season for thoughts of death to creep into one's head.  And the stupid thing is you have the time to start going through scenarios.  In my case, I start going through things like "Does The Wife know where all the financial information is?" and "Hope she'll be able to sell this house because God knows without my unemployment checks they'd be screwed."  And every sound is an axe murder breaking into the house to kill you and your family.  I actually have thought it through about if a killer actually busted into the room.  We'd all be dead because although I am the Hot Black Negro, (wait a minute, now I capitalize it, like it's a superhero or something? Wow.  Insane, remember?) I'm blind as one of those crazy witch oracles you see in the old movies who can predict the future but can't see the boil-filled, shriveled up, gray hand right in front of their face.  I go through fight scenarios and think, "Okay, if I can throw the fan or the end table at them, it may give me time to reach my glasses and lunge for the gun before they shoot The Wife and then tell me to get face down, ass up."  

The moral of this story is that being nearsighted will get you raped.

POTENTIAL HEALTH ISSUES SURFACE.  CHECK THAT: ANY HEALTH ISSUES SURFACE.

This is probably the worst one of them all.  Every little thing you feel, taste or see has you thinking brain tumor.  And then half the reason you can't sleep is because you're trying to diagnose whatever illness it is in your head before going to talk to your best friend, WebMD. Last night for example, I had, and actually still have a pain in my lower abdomen.  Because I'm in Kansas City, I've heard nothing but news this past week about the Chiefs' quarterback, Matt Cassel, who underwent an emergency appendectomy and had to sit out the game.  So what do I do? The first thing is go to the computer and google "Appendix location".  Then, since the pain isn't in that spot, I moved on to googling "organ locations" to see if anything else was in the vicinity.  In the end, I self-diagnosed myself that I may have a hernia of some sort.  Chances are I don't.  Actually I probably just strained myself picking up something, but that didn't keep me from going to bed, dismissing my hernia diagnosis and laying awake thinking of if it is an abdominal tumor.  I can't tell you how many times I've been in bed, it's 4am, and I run to take aspirin because I think my arm is numb and I'm having a heart attack.  It's ridiculous.

BULLSHIT DOCTORS

 

As annoying and frustrating as all of the above experiences are, they don't hold a candle to dealing with the goddamn doctors who treat insomnia like it's a disease, which is ironic because it IS a disease which they should be treating like it's a disease.  Instead, they don't want to touch it.  Seriously, I was in the doctor the other day, a doctor who is steadfast in his refusal to actually prescribe sleep-aids to aid in sleep, because of their "addictive tendencies", yet after giving me an exam for my shoulder which I said over-and-over was a LOT better than it was six weeks ago, and only really hurt when I touched it, he was ready and willing to prescribe me pain pills.  This after I JUST said it hardly hurt.  And the last time I checked, pain pills were pretty addictive.  But when I want to JUST. GO. TO SLEEP., he gives me anti-depressants that while they make you drowsy, I guess, they say right on the bottle that one of their main side effects is insomnia.  Come on, man.  But at least he's giving me SOMETHING.  This is the first doctor in my entire life who has actually prescribed something, ANYTHING, for my sleep problems.  The rest have told me flat out they wouldn't, or that I need to read a book.  Okay, the screen's getting blurry.  I'd better stop before I start talking nonsense.  Wait...don't say it...I'll say it myself:

"What do you mean, START talking nonsense? Ha ha ha ha".

Yeah, that's funny.  Now look in the mirror.  What do you see?  That's right.  NOT a Hot Black Negro.  That job is taken.  Check and mate, sucka.