A Book and Bed

Each  night as the sun goes down, I always have the same thought.  "I can't wait until I can get into bed and read my book."  Even if the book I am reading is less than sub par, I still anxiously anticipate slipping under the covers and leaving this world for a while.  Doesn't this sound wonderful.  It does to me as well, which is why I feel the need to imagine it daily.  However, only a few times in the last 11 years has this actually played out as flawlessly as imagined.  Usually, my name is screamed out with a question mark behind it at least 15 times each night.  For some reason this 'question mark' thing at the end requires that I solve some problem.  This could be anything from a missing pair of socks to a life threatening injury.  As the years went by, I began to develop little ploys to fight the 'question mark'.  First, I began  placing the cotton balls I normally reserved for bedtime with my sinus challenged husband in my ears at dark (or in summer after dinner).  This worked for a while until they started poking me with their fingers and speaking loudly and slowly once I made eye contact.  So, eventually I moved to a more advance strategy. Each night I would eat my dinner as quickly and quietly as possible, quickly clean the kitchen and run upstairs while they were all still arguing over who could burp the loudest. Once safely upstairs I would get into my pajamas, place the cotton balls in my ears, turn on the sound machine, take NyQuil, and pretend I was sound asleep.  This has worked fairly well, except that I rarely wake from my NyQuil induced sleep until morning.  Not every plan can be flawless or even work.  But, what I have learned is having a dream and a plan are important even if that is all they ever become.