Late Night Mind

Last night as I was lying in bed, I did what I always do. I watched old television shows for a couple of hours on the channels that feature the shows we Baby Boomers grew up on, turned out the light, rolled over and tried to get to sleep. Unfortunately, these channels know that mostly old farts are watching so their commercials tend to feature walk-in tubs, fancy canes, and medicine with names I can't pronounce and I'm not even sure what they're for but the spokesperson was really, really insistent we should ask our doctor for some. (These commercials are one of the reasons I can't sleep. They're enough to scare you to death, if the medicine doesn't do you in first.)

I say tried to get to sleep because, for whatever reason, this is the time my brain wakes up and decides to be an active member of my body. I can go all day without a thought or care in the world then BAM as soon as I'm ready for bed, my mind decides this is the time to start scrolling thoughts through my head at a rapid fire pace.

A few of the thoughts keeping me from slumber might be – Did I set the alarm? Did I lock the doors? Did I set the thermostat? When I paid the bills, did I get the right checks in the right envelopes? This is something I always worry I'll do – send a $100 check meant for the power company to the garbage people and send their $37 to the power company. Hasn't happened yet but doesn't stop me from worrying that it will.

If I'm not worrying about that I'm lying there thinking “Are the dogs in their beds and not locked outside?” This one usually pops up if there's any bad weather. My dogs are the bravest dogs in the neighborhood, maybe even the whole town, as long as they are indoors. Stick them outside for any length of time and they turn into big wussies. If they had to stay outside for a night, they'd never survive.

Our Cocker Spaniel is half-blind and not too bright so she barks at everything and I do mean everything. She makes sure we are protected from blowing leaves, trash that has escaped the garbage cans on trash day, birds and rabbits hopping around in the yard, neighbors walking in the street in front of the house (how dare they!) or worse yet, dogs walking in view of our front porch.

Our Yorkie is much braver but no smarter than her sister. In a thunderstorm, she'll run outside in the pouring rain and bark furiously at the thunder, in an attempt to make it go away. We can sleep well at night knowing that nothing will ever be missed by these two sharp guard dogs who wouldn't wake up at night unless a burglar was standing right beside them, then maybe.

I'll sit in my recliner reading another large town newspaper, which seems to be filled with nothing but burglaries, robberies, murders, corruption of city government, etc, which fills me with alarm and do you think my dogs are the least bit concerned that something might happen at our house? Only if the burglar were to try and steal their dog food or worse, Molly's chew toys.

They are better than a doorbell for letting us know when someone has the nerve to invade their space; their space being anything within 100 yards of the front door.

But back to the subject of late night mind wandering – anytime, actually. Another bad habit I have is jumping up at the most inconvenient times, like just as I'm drifting off to sleep, to check and see where my purse is. I now keep it on my dresser at night after one too many tricks my mind played on me where I'd awaken from a dead sleep in a panic wondering where it was. Where's my wallet? While I'm checking for my purse, I'll open my wallet to make sure all my credit cards, etc., are in place. I don't know what I'd do at that time of night if any were missing, but I do it anyway.

So as I'm drifting off I'll check on the dogs once more to make sure they're in their little beds, glance over to make sure my purse is where it's supposed to be, turn out the light and my mind will start racing once again, only to be periodically interrupted by the sound of our Cocker Spaniel snoring and her sister barking at her for waking her up.

I've heard brandy is a good sleep aid. Maybe I should take it up and share with our puppies. Then we'd all sleep better.