Pillow Talk

“I can’t sleep… Raymond, I can’t sleep. Are you awake? Raymond?”

“I am now.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“So you keep saying, Meg.”

“Help me get to sleep.”

“You woke me up just to ask me that?”

“I thought you’d want to know.”

“How very thoughtful of you. Now, can you please let me get back to sleep?”

“But I can’t sleep!”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Can you rub my back, please? You know that always relaxes me.”

“I’m tired, Meg, and I was just in the middle of a great dream.”

“What was it about?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Don’t you hate that.”

“What I hate is being woken up from a dream, so please allow me to close my eyes and chase after that moment.”

“But you can’t remember what it was, so how are going to..”

“..Meg, please. I’m tired.”

“So am I, Ray.”

“Then go to sleep!”

“I can’t. There’s too many things running around inside my head.”

“What things?”

“Stuff.”

“Can you be more specific, Meg?”

“Work stuff.”

“Great. Thanks for narrowing it down for me.”

“You know what it’s about, Ray. It’s what it’s been about since the takeover.”

“Oh, that. You’re worried about getting laid off.”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Ray. You’re needed at your company. I’m surplus to requirements at mine.”

“Yes. Well, not to be someone who says I told you so, but… I told you so.”

“No, you told me to keep my options open when interviewing. You said, keep your options open when interviewing.”

“And what else, Meg?”

“And don’t accept the first job offer I get.”

“I also said, be careful of fast expanding start-ups. They’re the most volatile. Especially, the ones that are in the middle of acquisition talks.”

“But they offered me the most money.”

“To which I advised you to wait until all offers were in, because?”

“Because, not all offers are as good as they appear up front?”

“Exactly! A lot of companies pad their books before putting themselves up for sale by adding more personnel to look like they’re growing.”

“Well, how was I to know?”

“Because… I told you so.”

“What am I going to do, Ray? I haven’t been there long enough to qualify for a severance package.”

“What about the other job offers you received?”

“They’re gone, now. I’ll have to begin my search all over again, and that can take at least three months’ worth of effort.”

“We’ll manage, Meg. Just start again in the morning. Now, try and get some sleep.”

“I can’t. My mind is too active.”

“Try counting sheep.”

“I have and it didn’t work.”

“You need to keep counting.”

“I did!”

“How far did you get?”

“Fourteen thousand, one hundred and twenty-two.”

“What!? How long have you been awake?”

“Two hours.”

“So, I’ve only had two hours of sleep, before you rudely decided to wake me up.”

“That’s two hours more than I’ve had.”

“Why don’t you fix yourself some warm milk.”

“Really, Ray?”

“Sorry, I forgot that you’re lactose intolerant. What about almond milk, then?”

“I used the last of it before bedtime.”

“On what? There was a whole carton of it in the fridge.”

“I baked muffins for tomorrow’s company meeting.”

“It’s already tomorrow, Meg.”

“You know what I mean. Tomorrow is when we find out who stays and who goes.”

“That’s suspiciously quick.”

“I think this has been in the planning for a while.”

“So, let me get this straight. You’ve baked muffins for work, knowing you’re about to be made redundant?”

“It was my turn for Friday Freebies. Plus, I’m not the only lactose intolerant Vegan there that wants gluten free muffins.”

“So, they’re tasteless.”

“That’s what the almond milk is for. To cover the blandness. I like to put a lot of care into my baking.”

“How touching.”

“Maybe, I should start a bakery service making gluten free and dairy free baked goods.”

“Just cut up some cardboard and douse it in almond milk, Meg. It’ll taste the same. We’d finally rid ourselves of all that recycling excess you keep folded up in the garage.”

“Gluten free and dairy free baked goods have lots of flavourful recipes. It’s not all rice cracker, polystyrene eating.”

“I’ll stick to the regular ones, thank you. Cow’s milk, sugar, wheat, flavour.”

“What about bagels? I could bake bagels and supply them to the bakeries.”

“Well, you couldn’t do any worse than those awful ones the supermarkets sell. They taste as dry as a bone and hard as rocks. You know what? Why don’t you sleep on it.”

“But you like bagels.”

“When you make them, yes. Which isn’t that often.”

“Yes, but when I do, they’re gone in minutes.”

“Bagels need to be eaten while they’re still warm… What’s with the change of career thinking?”

“Reinventing oneself is a sign of personal growth, Ray. Anyway, I never saw myself being a data analyst all my life.”

“I didn’t see you being a data analyst for less than two months, but here we are.”

“That’s not my fault. It’s beyond my control.”

“Calm down, my love. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yes, you did. You want to be in IT? Go to school and learn about it, you said. You want to make the big bucks? Be a data analyst, you said.”

“I also said, don’t take the first job offer that comes across your desk.”

“I told you so, I told you so… Ray.”

“Well, I did tell you so… Meg.”

“Why can’t you be more supportive?”

“I am supportive! I think you can do anything you set your mind to.”

“But you shoot down every idea I mention.”

“Look, you’re obviously upset at the news of the redundancies. I get it. But it’s a bit unfair of you to take it out on me.”

“Who else can I unload on?”

“Try your mother. I’m sure she’s still awake in her bat cave.”

“Are you implying that my mother is an old bat?”

“No, I’m implying that she’s a night owl who’s always up late.”

“I can’t call her at this time of night!”

“Why not?”

“She’ll get a fright when her phone rings.”

“Would you like me to dial her number for you?”

“Don’t be nasty. What has she ever done to you?”

“Apart from trying to bribe me to leave you before our wedding day and constantly adding, ‘if you were a real man’ to every sentence she says to me?”

“She’s just comparing you to Dad, that’s all.”

“Oh, yes. The real man.”

“In her eyes, he is, yes.”

“The man that ends all his sentences with, yes dear, no dear, three bags full, dear.”

“That’s just cruel.”

“I’m tired, Meg! I want to go back to sleep, but I can’t because your work-induced insomnia demands company.”

“You can go back to sleep. Don’t let me stop you.”

“Thank you.”

“After you tell me what you think of my idea.”

“What idea?”

“The bakery service.”

“For bakeries.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that like trying to sell sand to the Arabs?”

“Get out!”

“What!? I’m sleeping here.”

“Go sleep on the couch.”

“What for?”

“For being a bigot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Selling sand to Arabs? That’s so racist.”

“It’s just an expression, Meg. What should I have said?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, use the words, desert people?”

“That would make it lose its comedic timing and irony.”

“That was not a joke. It was a direct attack on a specific race of people.”

“They’re an ethnic group, Meg. They make up part of the Middle Eastern culture.”

“They’re still considered a race and your little pun is insulting.”

“To whom, Meg? There’s only you and me here. Surely, there is some form of sanctuary from the Woke police in my own home at two in the morning.”

“Woke is Woke, Ray. If you want to avoid being labelled, then adjust your mentality.”

“You really do need to sleep, Meg. You’re extremely tetchy.”

“I can’t sleep, Ray. That’s why I woke you up.”

“Okay, roll over on your side and I’ll rub your back.”

“Thanks, hun. On my shoulders and back. Yes, right there. That’s good.”

“Look, Meg. If what I say sounds a bit off-colour, I apologise, okay? I don’t want to sound like I’m indifferent to modern sensitivities. That’s not who I am. You know that. I mean, these days it’s difficult not to insult someone or have them not take offense at something innocuous through ironic humour. What worked years ago in comedy, now almost needs a politburo to approve a joke. I mean, soon – if we want to tell a joke, we’ll have to revert to knock-knock jokes like the orange joke or create a new joke-only race of people to use as whipping boys for punchlines. Yes, I know. You’ll probably argue that the term whipping boy is too gender specific, and added categories of Whipping Non-Binary, Whipping Trans, Whipping He/She/It/They, will need to offer clarification before punchlines are issued. I mean, I can see the future of good comedy being scarce like a pork sausage at a Jewish wedding or a nun at a stag party? Yes? You gonna bite, Meg? Meg…? Meg, are you awake? Meg? Great, I’ve got all your issues running around inside my head - and now, I can’t sleep.”