Shit!  We’re on #3!

Today’s winner was Warren Thomas. Leg infections suck. Sorry dude.

1. I must have a sheet and a blanket or comforter on me.  Not just a sheet, not just a comforter, both.  And never will I sleep without anything on top of me.
2. I absolutely cannot sleep in PJs, shirts, shorts, etc.  I must be in my undies.  This has been the way it is for as long as I can remember.
3. No peripherals.  No watches, jewelery (other than my necklace) or anything else.  I cannot STAND having stuff bugging me when I sleep.
4. And the final but biggest rule, I always sleep on my side.

And because of these rules, I have always wondered how people in hospitals or sleep studies get any sleep at all.  I mean really!  How in the hell can someone spend a week in the hospital with crap shoved up their nostrils and/or wires attached to their skin?  It must drive them insane!

Well now I know…

My wife called me at work a couple of weeks ago and asked if I could get the name of the sleep study clinic a friend’s wife recently went to for RLS.  ”Sure!”, I said, “Do you need to go?”   “No, you do”, she gently replies.  ”Last night was the worst I have ever seen.  You were snoring so hard your entire body looked as though it was lifting off the bed.”  This amused me, to say the least, and I challenged her.  ”Was it really that bad honey?  I mean, really?”  ”Oh yes!” she said.  ”It was even worse than you know.  You were snoring and farting too.  Snore, fart, snore, fart, snore, fart”.

Oh my God!  I was rolling on the floor when she told me this.  I can only imagine the torture she endured that night, so I had to tell all of my friends.  One smart guy summed it up by saying I was just being efficient with my use of oxygen.  ”In one end, out the other”, he said.  But I digress…

So last night was my sleep study appointment.  I had an 8:30pm show time and they were to monitor my sleep habits until 7:00am.  I got there a little early (8:00pm) because it was storming terribly and I left early (just in case).  They proceeded to wire me up.  With the severe thunderstorms in the area and all the wires they had connected to me, I was convinced I would become the real Frankenstein after a good bolt of lightening worked its way through the power lines and into my room.  My wife found humor in this when I mentioned it to her and told me it may be a good thing if I get shocked.  ”Maybe it will zap you back to normal”, she said.  I think she was just hoping for a little life insurance pay out if you ask me.  Another friend of mine told me to just make sure I was plugged into a surge protector.  Ha, ha…  Very funny everyone.  Let’s laugh at the chubby guy plugged into the wall during a thunderstorm.  I digress again…

So, back to the real reason I started this topic.  Around 11:00pm, the nurse (or whatever she was) calls over the speaker and tells me it’s time to go to sleep and that I should go to the bathroom before we hook up to the wall and begin the study.  So I did my business, climbed into bed and was ready to doze off.  Now by this time, I had been wearing the electrodes for about an hour and a half and had gotten fairly used to them being there.  ”I can do this”, I thought to myself.  Then she comes into the room, starts plugging me into the lightening bolt conductor and telling me what to expect.  ”This isn’t going to be so bad”, I’m thinking.  I am in shorts and a tee but that’s okay, I can deal with it.  I have wires attached to me at 20 different points but I’ve gotten used to them.  The bed is a Select Comfort Sleep Number, which is what I have at home.  There’s a sheet and a blanket on the bed, which meets sleeping rule number 1.  This is going to be just fine.

Then she slaps two more sensors on me, both in my nose.  They look like the oxygen tubes from the hospital but they’re sensors and there’s two of them strapped across my face and sticking up my nostrils.  Then she proceeds to tell me I must do my best to sleep on my back (um, remember rule number 4?) and I must do my best to breathe through my nose and not my mouth.  Are you kidding me lady?  You’ve just shoved what feels like cotton balls in my nose and you expect me to breathe through it?  Surely you jest?!?!  Oh, no…  She was serious.  ”I really need you to try.  If you can’t I will have to wake you up and remind you”, she says.  Wake me up?  You actually think I am going to be asleep with all this gear shoved into my face and body? Ugh…  But I digress….  AGAIN!

Anyway, I’m trying to get mentally prepared to go to sleep.  ”I’ll turn on the History Channel“, I thought to myself,”that always puts me to sleep”.  CLICK!  ”We’ll be turning this off now Mr. Edwards”.  What?  No TV while I fall asleep?  Are you crazy?  People can’t sleep without TV.  Can they?  Okay, fine.  No TV.  Just turn the damn lights off and let me think happy thoughts.  Maybe I’ll pretend I’m watching the History Channel instead…  Hmm…  Think about Nazi Germany.  That’s all they seem to ever play on that channel anymore, that’s why people call it the Hitler Channel, right?  Ah…  the silence… the darkness…  I’m uncomfortable but I can feel the warmth and comfort of a slumber approaching.

“Mr. Edwards”, I hear through the speaker, “we need to do some calibrations before you go to sleep”. Damnit!  I was almost there.

“Hold your eyes open for 30 seconds… (I wonder if I can blink?  Crap I blinked)  Close your eyes for ten seconds… look left and right… again… again… again…  look up and down… again… again… again… flex your left foot (okay, I had to think about that for a minute, which one is my left?)… flex your right foot (I just flexed my left, so I know the other one is my right)… now cough or snore three times… (I don’t feel like coughing, so I’ll snore because I am good at that)…

Snore, snore, snore…  Okay, I should have coughed because now I feel stupid and I know they are in the booth laughing at the idiot who chose to snore instead of cough.

“Okay Mr. Edwards”, the loud speaker yelled at me, “you can go to sleep now.”  Are you kidding me?  I was almost asleep 5 minutes ago, before you decided you needed to wake me up to calibrate me.  Now I am awake!  Okay, think happy thoughts and History Channel stuff.

So I eventually doze off into what felt like I was sleeping with one eye open.  Tossing from my back, to my side, to the other side, to my back, to my side, to my other side.  Never feeling as though I could get into a deep sleep as I fight the gear shoved up my nose, the cords hanging from my body and the t-shirt and shorts constricting my body like a Boa from the amazon.

Wham!  The door flies open without warning, bright lights from the office hallway glaring into my room, burning the Rhodopsin from my eyes and encouraging another 30 minutes of trying to go to sleep.  ”Okay Mr. Edwards, we are going to put the Apnea mask on you now.  You really need it”, she says with the grace of a roughneck.  Then she proceed to strap this hosed mask onto my head in the same fashion (and care) as someone would attach a saddle to a horse.  I thought she was going to rip my head right off my neck.  Great!  Now I feel so much more comfortable, NOT!

I have no idea what time this stylish elephant trunk was attached to my face, but it was not the most comfortable head-wear and when combined with cables, clothes and other rule breakers, I was not the least bit relaxed.  The only saving grace was that it replaced the crap she’d previously shoved up my nose and literally forced me to close my mouth and breathe through my nose instead of my mouth, ensuring she’d leave me alone on this topic.  So, I dozed again, never feeling like I got into a deep, restful sleep.

A little later, the morning light began shining thought the cracks between the blinds and the window seal, indicating my ordeal was soon reaching its conclusion.  Knowing she needed to monitor me for at least 6 hours of “sleep”, I tried to close my eyes and rest a little longer because I NEVER want to repeat this event again.  Sleep young padawon, sleep…  Please!?!  Crap!  I’m awake.

“Mr. Edwards, it’s almost 7:00am”, the booming voice says after what felt like days of waiting,”If you’re ready, I’ll come remove the sensors so you can go home”.  ”Hell yes, I’m ready!  Get your ass in here”, I thought… Instead it came out as a simple, “Yes, ma’am, I would like that very much, thank you”.  ”Okay,we’re going to do calibrations one last time”, she said.  What?  Are you kidding me?  I want to leave now… No, I wanted to leave 5 minutes ago…  okay, fine, let’s get this done.  Which one it my left foot again?

Calibrations completed, she comes into the room, flips the light on, burning Rhodopsin from my eyes again, and starts removing, no ripping the electrodes from my hairy flesh.  When she was done, I knew with certainty I had just experienced what some liberals of today would call illegal torture.  I knew this with certainty when I realized she took skin with her, leaving my leg bloody and in pain.

“A quick trip to the bathroom and I am outta here”, I think to myself.  So, off I go to do my business and freshen up for the drive home only to discover my head is literally saturated with some sticky, gooey gunk used to hold the electrodes to my head.  Without a good washing, the best I can do is try to flatten my hair down and look like Alfalfa from Our Gang as there was inevitably  a strand or two sticking straight into the sky.  So, into the sink goes the head and a quick dry with paper towels before grabbing my over-night gear and slinking out of the medical building like a thief in the night, hoping no one sees me (which of course someone did).

In to the truck, slam it in drive and boogie home as fast as I can, shaving as many seconds off the 20 minute drive as I could so I could get home and shower this goo out of my hair and off my body.

So now I know.  How do people in hospitals sleep with all that crap attached to them?  They don’t.  Or they don’t very well.

Am I glad I did the study?  Sure.  Maybe now my wife won’t set up camp in the guest bedroom anymore and maybe I can get the treatment I need to ensure a restful sleep.  Do I want to do this again?  Oh Hell No!

Note to self:  Stay healthy and do not spend the night in a hospital if you can help it.

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are  identical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences in the two dolphins. The more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing.

Look at the photograph and if you find more than one or two differences you may want to take a vacation.

I’m going on vacation!

It has taken 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road.

President Barack Obama reacts with laughter to comic actress Wanda Sykes who entertained the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, Saturday, May 9, 2009. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah. If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.

EATING OUT

When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it’s only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY

A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need but it’s on sale.

BATHROOMS

A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel . The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS

A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t. A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, but she does.

DRESSING UP

A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL

Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING

Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house..

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

A married man should forget his mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing!