The Sleepwalk

There are popsicle sticks everywhere, including my midriff.

A signal something is wrong. Or at the very least not completely right. 

I peel one off my left tit and am disappointed that it doesn’t have a joke written on it. I shout “Buckets!” and throw it across the room, hoping it lands somewhere in the vicinity of the trash can. 

I roll out of bed and head to the head for my first piss of the day. Mid-stream she appears in the doorway.

“Glad to see you’re pissing without laughing this morning,” she says, not looking very pleased.

I am perplexed.

“Do I usually laugh when I piss?” I ask, sincerely wondering if I’ve been doing this every morning since we moved in together (and probably years before that) and just hadn’t been aware of it.

“You did last night.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, just after the part of the evening where you slathered maple syrup all over your chest and started chanting in a sing-songey voice, ‘I’m a sticky little syrup boy, putting it on waffles brings me great joy.’”

Now the popsicle sticks still sticking to my shirtless body make more sense. 

“I sleepwalked didn’t I?” I ask. “Or is it slept-walked?”

“Seems like it. And I’ve heard it both ways.”

“Goddamnit. It’s been years. I think.” I guess i wouldn’t fully know as I have spent the majority of my nights alone since my last documented episode, but if I have been sleepwalking I haven’t done anything that makes me believe I’ve done so. There have been no witnesses or evidence as egregious as this.

“At least the song made sense,” I say.

“I love that you can always find a silver lining.”

“So it was bad?”

“Real bad, man. Real bad.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Well, for one thing, most of the damage was done before I finally woke up and came out to the kitchen to see what the hell you were doing, and for a second I’ve always been told to not wake up people who are sleepwalking.”

“You learned that from Step Brothers didn’t you?”

“Yep.

“So…What did I do?”

“For starters, I saw you gleefully eat a Starburst without unwrapping it. A yellow one, which is so unlike you. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” 

“Oof. I had a night, huh?”

“Sure did.” 

“Give me the worst.”

She points to the kitchen floor, which is covered in mismatched towels. 

“You were apparently out here filling the Brita pitcher, pouring it out on the floor and then refilling it, over and over again,” she says. “Or at least that’s how I found you.”

“That’s not great.”

“Yeah. There was enough water that it may have seeped down to the downstairs neighbor’s place. You should check with them. Or wait for them to come angrily knocking at your door. Probably did a little damage to your floor, too. Good thing you have renters insurance.”

“Yep.”

“You did renew your renters insurance when you re-upped your lease, right?”

“Pass.”

“Dude. That’s going to be a problem.”

“For now I’ll hold on to hope that it hasn’t lapsed. Please tell me the rest of whatever I did was not nearly as destructive.”

“Nah, after that you just wandered around the apartment doing a bunch of random weird stuff—most of it involving food. You were sleepwalking and sleep eating, but it was humorous and harmless. Though there was a time when I left you to your own devices while I put all the towels down on the kitchen floor. So you could have done anything in that window. Even slipped out and done a murder or something.”

I check my hands for blood and, finding none, breathe a sigh of relief.

“What else did I do? I’m almost afraid to ask. But lay it on me.”

She cracks her knuckles, leans against the kitchen island and starts counting with her fingers as she recounts my sleepwalking shames.

“You actually did a shot of ranch dressing. I’ve heard you talk about it before so I know it’s in the dark recesses of your mind and boy did that lobe or whatever take over last night. You finished it and said, ‘Damn, that’s good.’ You brought a full box of Rocket Pops into bed and proceeded to devour them. You dipped one of them in mayonnaise. Spilled a bunch. You’re probably gonna need new sheets. Once they were gone you shrugged, got up and went into the bathroom, where you laughed extremely hard the entire time you were peeing, like your ding-a-ling was the funniest thing you’d ever seen.”

“Well, it kind of is, so I guess that tracks.”

“And I should mention that you were peeing on the shower mat. Which I don’t understand. The toilet is, like, right there.”

“Yikes. Sounds like I really got weird with it.”

“After you finished you walked right past me like I wasn’t even there—just went back to bed and pulled the covers up, cackling maniacally the entire time. You sounded kind of like the Joker.”

“Nicholson? Ledger? Leto? Phoenix?”

“Probably closest to Phoenix.”

“Nice.”

“You’re losing the plot, here.” 

“Right. Anyway. It’s weird, though. I feel kind of well-rested.”

“You slept like a rock once you came back to bed, syrup and popsicle sticks and all. I set up pillows between us so you wouldn’t try to sleep-cuddle me in your sticky state. Then I stayed up all night watching, waiting for you to do it again.”

“Oh man. I am so extremely sorry. But I deeply appreciate your vigilance.”

“I’ve lost sleep over worse. And it’s not like it’s your fault. Seems like something out of your control for the most part. Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yeah—I’d love to chalk this one up to an anomaly.”

Just then there’s a knock at my door and I immediately panic. It’s got to be either my downstairs neighbor, the building superintendent or my landlord. I’m still covered in sap and sticks. I’m either going to have to ignore it until I clean myself up or throw on a T-shirt real quick and face whatever music is coming my way.

“Oh!” she says as she checks her phone. “Must be our Uber Eats.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and hit the showers.

I come out feeling like a new man. 

"Let’s go for a walk,” she says.

“Why?”

“So you’re not here when someone comes looking for you.”

“I mean, they’ll find me. They know where I live.”

“But if you’re not here when they come by they’ll have to call you. And I know you hate in-person confrontation with a burning passion I’ve rarely seen and would prefer to try and take care of this sort of thing over the phone.”

She’s absolutely right.

It’s so nice to have someone who really gets you.