Sleep Talkin' Man by Karen Slavick-Lennard Read Free Book Online Page A

Time was running out! Then I saw the roll of toilet paper and had an idea …
I grabbed the toilet paper and started wrapping it around the toothpaste. I wound it around and around till the whole roll was gone. So now I had a big ball of toilet paper holding the toothpaste in the tube, but NO! That wasn’t good enough! So I went into my room and opened my dresser drawer and
grabbed a couple T-shirts and wrapped those around, too. Finally, when I had a bundle the size of a football wrapped around the toothpaste I felt relief. The world was finally safe! I put the giant toothpaste tube–ball into my drawer, closed it, and went back to sleep in peace.
In the morning I woke up to the sound of my dad yelling, “WHEEERE’S THE TOOTHPASTE?” Suddenly I remembered the whole thing. “No, it can’t be,” I was thinking, “it had to be a dream …” But I opened my dresser drawer and … yep, there was the ball. So I started unwraaaapping it and unwraaaapping it—it took FOREVER. When I finally got all the stuff off, there in the middle was the toothpaste … with the cap on.
    Tammy S.
    Ontario, Canada

    Smug fucking chameleon,
with its googly oogly eyes.
Stick it in front of the TV.
That’ll fuck it up.
    “Going to husband school. Always having to do better. The teacher’s a bitch and there’s no chance of graduating”
    I can’t tell you how many concerned e-mails and comments I’ve gotten from blog readers, checking to see if I’m emotionally intact after the latest STM zinger. For example, the above. That’s right, lying right next to me, Adam said that in his sleep. But no, he did not wake up to find me sobbing dejectedly or glaring accusingly. Granted, Adam does say some truly dreadful things in his sleep. And I suppose that there are some women out there who would worry that their husband was revealing some dark, hidden feelings about her that he dare not utter in the light of day.
    I am not that woman. There has never been a single utterance to come out of Sleep Talkin’ Man that has offended me, or left me fretting for my relationship. I’ve got a husband who still sends me off to work with sandwiches in which he hastucked little love notes. Why would I get myself worked up over some nutty nighttime nattering?
    STM does spend an inordinate share of his limited airtime spewing insults. People have commented that he must really dislike people, or suffer from some serious anger issues. All I can say to that is, as the person who sees more of him awake and asleep than anyone, it’s just not true—Adam spends most of his days in good spirits, and genuinely likes and gets along with just about everyone. So I believe that, for the most part, his clever but scathing insults are not inspired by anyone, but are just Adam’s subconscious letting off a bit of steam while entertaining itself along the way.
    Nevertheless, Adam’s sleep talking has occasionally gotten him into a spot of trouble with those who did take something personally. For example, this little time bomb from two years into our relationship:
    “Your mum’s at the door again.
Bury me. Bury me deep.”
    My mom read the blog that day. When she spoke to me a day or two later, she joked about Adam owing her an apology. By the time she had made this quip three more times over the next week, I got the message that she really was waiting for an apology, or at least some assurance. I think my mother was feeling genuinely concerned that STM was revealing some kernel of truth about Adam’s feelings. Seriously, Mom, the guy herds pygmy goats, keeps a midget in his closet, and married a zombie. How much more evidence would it take to convince you that STM’s universe is populated with an entirely different cast of characters than Adam’s? There’s a whole other world up there in Adam’s head, and STM insults his way through every bit of it.
    That said, it often happens that particular events in Adam’s waking life crop up in some warped form in his