4 AM and all is well… that ends well?

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it’s 4 in the morning, but i’ve been up since 3. i wake up at 3 a lot. it’s usually not a big deal. it’s mostly that i have to get up and use the bathroom. i have to wazz around 3am pretty much every day. it usually doesn’t bother me. i enjoy getting up out of a warm bed to stumble around the room and make my way into the bathroom (or wazzatorium, as we call it, sometimes) all in the dark with only the glow from the clock radio to guide me.

it’s rarely a big deal. i can do my business and find my way back to bed with no trouble. and 9 times out of 10 i can fall back to sleep faster than you’d think possible. in fact, the only way that i can’t fall back asleep immediately is if i start thinking about one thing: money.

this morning was one of those times. with an added Bonus Round for even more fun.

i woke up at 3am on the dot. as if an alarm had gone off. it was just my bladder. but i didn’t get up right away. i was debating: should i get up and relieve myself? or should i go back to sleep and hold off on getting up out of my toasty cocoon?

and then i heard it: a dripping. a steady dripping. the bathroom sink.

the goddamned bathroom sink.

i decided to get up and wazz so’s i could tighten the tap to stop the dripping. because maybe whoever used it last didn’t tighten it enough. this would have been a Best Case Senario.

i get back to bed a little miffed about the faucet wondering how long the damned thing has been dripping when out of left field (i sleep on a baseball field, apparently.) i start thinking about taxes.

well, it’s fucking Game Over for my sleep. that’s all it took, one eensy-weensy thought about taxes. i may as well have snorted cocaine before trying to go back to sleep. and then? what do i hear? of course.

a drip. a drop. a drip. a drip.

and the drips… and the drops… are amplified somehow, although i’ll be damned if i can remember micing the sink. and now that i think about it i haven’t noticed any microphones or other sound equipment in the bathroom. no, but somehow the drips… and the drops… (for there are drips and drops. it’s not one steady noise, nay, sometimes it’s a tinny drip, almost a cracking sound really. and sometimes it’s a drop, a thunking, hollow shout that hits right at the edge of the drain so it gets a great bass sound to it. and still there’s no pattern to it. no real music in it. it’s not a steady dripdripdrop or dripdropdrip. nothing you can hum to. no, it’s a random cacophany of drip drops. not a song at all, but merely a counting of failures.

drip: you didn’t fix the sink.
drip: even your dad, who can fix anything, didn’t fix the sink.
drip: it’s the cold water tap. it’s the cold goddamned water tap.
drop: you’ve “fixed” it twice now.
drip: admit it, you’re gonna have to buy a whole new sink with whole new fixtures even though you just need the new fixtures because the sink is so old
drop: that they don’t even make fixtures to fit that sink anymore.
drip: and maybe if you were getting a tax refund you could buy a new sink.
drop: like you’re not going to owe? ha!
drip: you’ve wasted a decade of your life.
drip: your husband doesn’t love you.
drip: did he ever?
drop: you’ll never have children.
drop: there’s a monster under the bed.
drip: and one by the door.
drop: is it ironic that you’re thirsty?

and as the dripping and dropping Tell-Tale Hearts it’s way through my brain [and just which part of the brain does it shoot through, anyway? because i’m thinking if normal people only use about 10% of the brain, then the drip/drops probably go through one of those unused parts. one of the parts that is dark in a normal brain, but that’s lit up like a Christmas tree in say, a serial killer’s brain.] and the counting of the failures gets more and more dark, and the thoughts seem less and less human and more and more like the thoughts of a pissed off, demon possessed, resentful sink. like maybe he’s sick and tired of being spat in day after day.) echo through the quiet bathroom and bedroom and down into my ear. and they hit my brain like nickels and dimes.

so i tell myself, no! no nickels and dimes! no taxes! you cannot think about money anymore! you must think about something else. anything else.

so i start thinking about Andrew Jackson. like you do. like anyone does, really. i mean, after an hour of crazy dripdrop thoughts doesn’t your mind immediately transition into a rant about Andrew Jackson?
i thought so.

and maybe Jackson is a war hero. maybe he played a part in developing the frontier… or at least, Tennessee. but also? wasn’t he the genocidal, asshole president who wanted to ethnically cleanse the U.S. of Native Americans? and why do we honor him by putting his scary-ass, mad scientist hair wearing, crazy-eyed al pacino-looking, mass-murderer face on the twenty dollar bill? wait, that’s money. and i’m not thinking about money anymore.

yes, he had laserbeam eyes. just like the villains from Superman II. in fact, where do you think they got the idea? and just how did you think he won the War of 1812?
Old Hickory? Old Hickory?! more like Old Fu Manchu Villian Facial Hair Laser Eyes, to me.

and now, it is 5:42 am and i’m going to try to go back to bed.

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