Sleepover

Any day that good had to have a bummer ending. I've basically had no sleep lately. In fact, I went to bed early on Sunday night to try to rouse myself out of my zombie state, and instead spent half the night awake as if my body has forgotten to sleep. Yesterday I finally hit the point where I knew I'd be able to sleep. I even napped through a few innings of the baseball game.

But when it came time to finally go to bed, I discovered I have a new roommate (or potentially, roommates). Basically, the first stage of sleep was brutally interrupted by a strange sound. It sounded as if an opossum was gnawing on my furniture. I have since been assured by a former New Yorker that tiny mice do make sounds just like the ones I described and at a volume level quite unexpected for their size. However, I spent the next three and a half hours in a state of terror. Could this creature climb up on my bed? Would it be better to hunt it down for a glimpse so I knew what I was dealing with, or would that escalate the fear even more? I decided to flee my bedroom (and shut the door, for though I know a small rodent can fit under a door, this one was clearly the size of a badger) and sleep on the couch instead. Well either my little friend followed, or he had an accomplice in the living room. I could hear it quite clearly nibbling behind my big easy chair. Any time I would make a move (run to grab my phone-- who can I call? It's 3am? But I don't have to be up for four hours! And I haven't slept!) it would stop, sometimes followed by a little scampering, then resume the loud nibbling sound.

I finally decided I couldn't take it any more, and called my friend, who lives a block away, just after 3am. She didn't answer, I left a, "Hi, um, I know it's like 3am but if you get this before morning could you call me?" Five minutes later she called back, and insisted I sleep over there. I left the mice to their own devices. I tucked in around 3:30, her alarm went off around 6:30. I am in pain today.