An interesting phenomenon.....

takes place when Alan is asleep.
Specifically when Alan is asleep before me and I lie staring holes through the ceiling until I admit that the sandman hasn't paid me a visit yet.
You can not force sleep upon yourself, well at least I can't, so up I get to putter about until I start to yawn.
This is not the interesting phenomenon, me un-sleepified that is.
SMASH, CRASH, SQUEAK, BOOM...CRASH, SQUEAKKKKKKKKKK, CREAAAAAAAAAAAAK....THIS is the interesting phenomenon
What's interesting is how suddenly, once the decision to try and be as quiet as possible has been made, it's as if some cross wired bit of my brain announces to itself that the purpose of my stealthy mode is to be as noisy as humanly possible.
I quietly slide out of bed and grab my glass of water on the night stand to take with me to the living room and....SMASH...by some unfortunate twist of poor stealthy reflexes what should have been a simple maneuver ends up sounding like a symbol crash as I crack a heavy glass full of water on to the night stand. Alan, bless his sleepy little heart doesn't bolt upright in bed but he does open his eyes and smile sleepily at me. At this point there's no need to whisper but it seems appropriate though a little late now and so I say as softly as I can "I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sorrrrrrrry, I can't sleep" Ahhhh mysterious crash explained, and Alan closes his eyes and drifts back to dream land where I am sure he is fighting zombies and kicking general dream people ass.
Hey what can I say, some of us dream about giant vats of ice cream they can slide down into like it's snow and some of us dream we're super hero ninjas who can fight 7 guys at once....go figure.
Tiptoeing is next. It's not necessary but after the incredibly loud *wake yer neighbors 10 miles in every direction* way to announce I can't sleep, it seems only fair to try and balance the quiet scales a bit. Tip toeing I'm good at. In fact if tippy toeing ever becomes a sport I will kick major toe ass because I'm the fricking queen of tippity toeing my way across the carpet. I tip toe so well I fairly float. (this is because I have had oodles of practice during school years at home when the fine art of tippy toeing to the fridge in the middle of the night yielded the much coveted and rare cookies that were meant SOLEY for school lunches) Oh yeah, I hear what you're thinking "sure she can be quiet when there's a sugar loaded treat as the goal" I agree, this appears to be the only way to counteract the cross-wired stealth mode of my brain. Add a sweet treat to the equation and Bammo, I'm like the fog, slowly rolling over the floor, touching everything, yet eerily quiet, gliding to the freezer and cracking open a Ben & Jerry's.....
How ever unfortunately for my poor sleeping husband on this occasion I'm not hungry and so I tippy toe my way expertly across the carpet to my computer chair, quietly lower myself into it and CREEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeaak....what the hell?????? It's almost as if I have some sub-conscience power to transfer my bizarre cross wired un-stealth like stealth mode to inanimate objects (and cats). The chair has NEVER made this sound when we're both awake. It sounds like a chicken hawk is being slowly strangled. I freeze, sitting as still as possible in the chair until the chicken hawk is apparently dead and set my glass down upon the desk...WHAM! Damn it, this is getting ridiculous....it's as if when Alan is asleep and I am awake all the every day objects I come into contact with are now percussion instruments so expertly constructed in some mysterious way that a simple glass touching the surface of the desk is like a crack of thunder. In fact, I get up to check the window CREEEeEEeeeeeeeeaaaaaaak (ok so chicken hawk isn't quite dead yet) to see if it looks stormy on the off chance it's not me that time but a legitimate act of nature.....but alas it's just not my lucky day, no vicious thunder storms to explain away the incredibly deafening sounds I'm apparently responsible for. Damn it.
At this point since I'm already up I might as well refill my water glass (as I suspect I lost half of water down the side of my night stand from earlier)
Luckily one of the cats chooses this moment as I am tippy toeing to the kitchen sink to streak in front of me, knocking into my legs and forcing me to stumble, bump against the table BOOM! and SQUEEEEAAAAL like a startled mailman. I say luckily because who knows what invisible foe the cat just saved me walking into.......yeah right.
At this point I am usually so exhausted from the strain of trying to be quiet that I just turn around smashing and crashing my way back to bed. Careening off the garbage can, cupboards and walls that mysteriously get in my way.
And my sweetie pie Alan sleepily asks as I crawl under the covers "Was that the military?"
"No" I answer sheepishly
"Oh" he answers knowingly
"lets just go to sleep"
and so we do.


Side note for Canadian Relatives, it was a legitimate question for Alan to ask if it was the military he heard cause they are fairly near here and are either having wicked awesome parties every week or are exploding things just for fun. Either way the windows rattle on a regular basis from them! Just thought you'd want to know.