Like a Woodpecker's Beak Through Dead Timber, So Are the Nights of My Life

I went to bed early last night. It was no later than midnight-thirty. That's early for me, the night owl, usually roosting around 3:00 and sleeping in for a good six hours, whether I need it or not. No reason to get up early those 23 days between school ending for Christmas break, and school beginning after the Polar Vortex.

I was counting on being well-rested. Especially since my back-to-school headache started on Sunday, not on Monday. Yep. Catch a few winks, let that old headache fade away, and start fresh at 4:50 a.m. Monday morning. That was the plan. Perhaps not the best-laid plan, but it still managed to go awry.

Now that the dreaded moisture barrier mattress cover has been ripped from my pillow-topper for a couple of weeks, I was looking forward to a comfy snooze. Sure, I knew the sheet would still be way over my head, and mist would be spraying from Hick's breather. Those were small potatoes compared to the Biggun of that crackly unfitted mattress cover.

Then I laid me down to sleep
No flannel quilt upon my feet
A single hour before I was waked
Across the coals Hick will be raked

Ah...I was sawing major logs. Logs as numerous and girthy as those floating down the river when even Paul Newman could not save cousin Joby, trapped under one of those behemoths, in Sometimes a Great Notion. Then I was startled out of my stupor by three giant words: "THOSE STUPID DOGS!"

Never mind that I hear those hounds barking their fool heads off for nothing every early morn. Do I shout out my critique of their home defense prowess? No, I do not. Did Hick haul himself out of be to look outside and see if his trailer was being towed away by early birds? No, he did not. But I did. I went to the front door to see what was the matter. Nothing. My sweet, sweet Juno came running to the door for petting. I was of a good mind to bring her in and plop her between me and Hick, her feathery tail brushing across his quilt-covered breather. But I did not. She was happy, and returned my figurative paw de-thorning with several blessed moments of silence. I went back to sleep.

One hour later, I was jolted away by a kick from a mule. Or a horse-donkey. It's a regional thing. Funny how when I fell asleep, I had no idea that I was sleeping with a horse-donkey. What a powerful rump you have, dear horse-donkey! I know. The better to dislocate your knee, my dear. Uh huh. That's what if felt like. My right knee bent inward, toward my left knee. The joint is not configured that way. It was quite painful. I think I may have lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew, I was counting the elusive ZZZZs.

Another short hour later, and I was beset with a disturbed nest of TrackerJackers. Oh, wait! That was Katniss in The Hunger Games. She escaped with minor injuries. I, however, was not so lucky. Again with my right leg. It was stabbed over and over by the raptor-claw of Hick the Prehistorian. I think he was trying to break Lizzie Borden's whack record. Such a pummeling I took. Yet I tried to shake it off. To drift back to dreamland. Hick was having none of it. He began piercing my side-tibia flesh with his talon like a famished woodpecker seeking sustenance. Great Googly Moogly! I tried not to be a Nancy Kerrigan, and managed to stifle my, "WHYYYY?" But I am not so stoic as Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse, stitching up my own beer-bottle-slashed flesh with a common sewing needle and cotton thread. I had to get up and walk it off.

It was now 3:30 a.m. Still time left to lay slack-jawed with drool escaping the downhill corner of my gaping maw. Please. Spare me the lamentations of those who simply cannot fall asleep. I can fall like a Wallenda with an inner-ear infection, and continue falling like Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, and Anita Briem through the schist on their Journey to the Center of the Earth. AND THEY'RE STILL FALLING! My problem is that somebody keeps breaking my fall.

I got up and checked on the barking dogs again. I did not shout out, "THOSE STUPID DOGS!" That is not Val's style. I did, however, fling back the quilt as I re-entered my flannel-covered pillow-top. Sometimes, the leading edge has a way of commanding Hick's attention.