Sleepless in the Suburbs

It’s now 3:25am and way past my bed time. It’s also one of those nights where I hate my beloved, Love Chunks, with a passion. No, he didn’t sleep with the Penthouse Gymnastics team or gamble away our life savings, it’s much more annoying. He’s one of those lucky, lucky bastards who only has to roll over and say "Goodni---" and be fast asleep before his head has even made a dent in the pillow.

In direct contrast, Sleep and I have a very fraught relationship; kind of like Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Once we were very close; soul-mates who spent quality time together and got along like a house on fire, but now we are completely estranged and wonder just what the hell we had in common in the first place. A court case is soon to follow, with me prosecuting Sleep for breach of contract: failure to provide decent, regular service under the 8/24 agreement I signed up for.

Love Chunks isn't the one to blame for my predicament. A couple of years ago he bravely underwent surgery to get his – erm, I’m not sure what the exact medical term is – fleshy ‘curtains on the side of the stage’ in his throat cut out so that he’d no longer snore like an bellowing elephant trapped in quicksand. He endured two weeks of agony afterwards so that he’d no longer be banished to the spare room or be glared at for the entire time the sun was up. It worked too - all I hear now is a faint 'Ooosh Ooosh' sound of air travelling in and out of his newly constructed Heysen Tunnel.

Sometimes the insomnia can be blamed on the pillows. Too flat, too hot (so flip them over, I hear you say - and I do, so often they might as well be set on rollers), too high, too hard, too soft.... The quilt - too cold, too fluffy or LC's hogging too much of it... The room? Too bright, too dark, too creaky. The local hoons who seem to choose our end of the street to do their black tyre skid mark signatures and burn outs? Who the hell knows but surely they're not actually attracting any potential shag partners doing so?

Well, I do know the reason for my insomnia actually. It's my stupid, over-loaded-with-useless-pop-culture brain. It's a well known fact that human beings have been estimated as only being capable of using ten percent of their brain capacity during their lifetimes, but did the lab coats who spent their grant money on Pocket Pen Protectors and Tomb Raider toiletries ever stop to consider the insomniac sufferers amongst us?

For us, a further 60% of the brain is worn out but unfortunately not in a useful way. Instead, we lie awake with our eyes squeezed shut, trying to approximate the state of relaxation when in reality our bodies are completely rigid as we try to block out inane ditties such as the Wiggles' song 'Wobbly Wobbly Wobbly Dance.' My daughter hasn't played that video for five years yet it's that song that tonight decides to superglue itself inside my complaining cranium and replay itself over and over and over.

Even when I try to change the track listing and instead imagine that I'm lying in my childhood bedroom, trying to remember where all the furniture was and what toys I had, the song keeps creeping in: "Wobbly wobbly wobbly dance….Front, back and side to side…..", so that I actually, genuinely want to be having a nightmare but one where I'm the bad guy: kicking over Anthony the blue one's fake drum set, smashing Murray the red one's guitar, violently shaking Jeff awake and giving that smug yellow one Greg a good hard kick in the goolies.*

That poetic visualisation can often make things better for me in the bedroom, but not tonight. I stayed laying there on my hot pillow, under the scratchy quilt, biting uncomfortably down on my retarded mouth guard as though it was a chunk of wood in my teeth to help me get through the pain of a bullet being yanked out of my leg by John Wayne. The Wiggles had finally departed my brain, no doubt being taken to the emergency ward by Dorothy the dinosaur with Henry the Octopus driving and Captain Feathersword seeking legal counsel.

Not for long, unfortunately. They must have needed petrol in the big red car or forgot their keys or something: "Dorothy! Dorothy! Would you like to dance with me?" I tried my damnedest to think of a classic 'Nebraska' or 'Ghost of Tom Joad' Springsteen mope tune to give me a big enough downer to numb me for sleep. But nooooo, I had already moved on to a mental stocktake of what toys I have stashed in the cupboard for children’s birthdays - Sam will be getting a Bionicle pack like all of the other boys' parties that my eight-turning-nine-this year daughter will be invited to. And for the love of god, did I need to try and figure out where sesame seeds come from tonight?

Like all insomniacs, I know that taking a trip to the loo might do the trick bladder-wise, but is fraught with disappointment in terms of seeking any opportunity to slip back into bed, 200ml lighter, ready for Nod Land. An empty bladder, alas, does not equal an empty mind. Still, I go through the standard, worn-out, futile routine. I walk s-l-o-w-l-y through the house, hoping to be quiet but instead allowing each and every 80 year old floorboard to crack and squeak. I make sure to keep my eyes shut in the vain hope that my body will think it’s asleep. I successfully groped my way carefully along the walls into our newly renovated bathroom until I accidentally touch the heated towel rail, flung my hand backwards and cracked it against the door handle. F%$#@!!

Oh who the hell was I kidding? I decided that I might as well stay awake and see what Benny Hinn's got to say to his devoted flock today. Maybe not. Milly the dog, not known for her ability to tell time, got excited and thought it was time for a run. “Get down beast, you're scratching my legs with your claws. No, it's not time for a run or walkies just yet, can't you see that from the silent yet deadly glare from my road-map like red eyes? Get down!" I said in my most furious whisper. A few hopeful licks of my bare feet and a ‘thumpa thumpa thumpa’ of her tail against the coffee table was her answer.

Eventually, I gave in to the obvious and had a squizz inside the fridge. Mmmm chocolate.....such a shame when three rows snap off instead of one. No point in putting them back, is there? There was also a Farmers Union Feel Good iced coffee that had a ‘use by’ date of today and if anyone needed to 'feel good' it was me.

Alrighty then, so Zzzzeds in bed was clearly not going to happen for me tonight – or should I say this morning, so I decided to stay up, eat my choccie, sip my FUIC, enjoy myself and suffer the grumps later on this afternoon.

I’ll just go and slip on a DVD, preferably something featuring John Cusack, lie back on the lounge and give Milly a good cuddle, making sure that no chocolate gets smeared on her ears or the new lounge cushions. Life isn't too bad after all I s’pose. Even if I do get irritable today, no-one will notice anything unusual. So, if we only use ten percent of our brains, and supposing that insomniacs use another 60% at night on useless thoughts, then what is the remaining thirty percent used for..........

* I know it’s Sam who’s the yellow one these days, but it was Greg who sang the stupid song in Sapphire’s old video and therefore he is the one who will be paying his dues. In my head at least.