Wednesday, March 16, 2016

First-World Problems

Here's how it plays out: The end of any typical day, perhaps spent working or cleaning house or stuck in traffic. A decent meal, the dog's been walked, and the endless, pointless, mindless drone of "Murder, She Wrote" or "The Good Wife" flickers from the TV set. Dishes are mostly taken care of, except for the odd glass or dessert plate which sit in the sink. Your limbs seem to fill with wet sand. It becomes physically impossible to hold your eyes open as some neurochemical courses through your veins shutting off the proverbial lights and drawing the curtains. You fall into a fitful drowse, despite the fact that you are sitting upright and your jeans are cutting into your waistline and in the back of your mind you keep telling yourself that you have to rinse off that fork in the sink. For an hour or so, you drift in and out of consciousness as your spouse tiptoes off to bed, as you wake yourself up snoring, or as Jessica Fletcher finds yet another dead body in her living room. Each time, for that brief moment before drifting off again, you think to yourself that you need to get to bed and you remember that stupid fork in the sink and it's all so overwhelming that you have to just rest here for a minute longer...
Eventually, your Iron Will as an autonomous human being vanquishes the melatonin and seratonin which have been marinating your brain, and you manage to lift yourself off of your chair or your couch or futon. Eyes half-closed, you blearily rinse the goddam fork. You stumble into the bathroom and take care of your teeth. Leaving a trail of clothing which makes it look like you've been on a drunken honeymoon for one, you shuffle into the bedroom, where the husband and the dog are already blissfully sleeping. You fall, practically face-first, into the bed.
And you are wide, wide awake.