Sleep Talkin' Man

by Karen Slavick-Lennard

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 has tucked 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 late-night mumblings. This has been known to drop him in a bit of hot water. For instance, one night after he had shamelessly teased the receptionist at work about the prolific :) and :( faces studding her e-mails, STM came out with:

  “If she sends me one more fucking smiley

  face emoticon, I’m gonna shove that

  keyboard so far up her ass, she’s gonna

  have to tweak her nipples to force quit.”

  That one caused some trouble. To be specific, when he walked into work the next morning, it caused a stapler to be hurled at his head.

  Real life references didn’t always pepper Adam’s sleep talking as they do now. In fact, for a long time, everything Adam said seemed utterly random and unrelated to reality. It was a full ten months into STM’s existence before he said anything that we were able to recognize from our waking life. But there was no missing it that first time:

  “My snorkel! My snorkel! Judge won’t like

  it if I don’t have my snorkel!

  You PLANT it … Don’t want baby snorkels.”

  Now, I can’t tell you where the snorkels fit in. I can tell you, though, that this was the night before he was going into family court concerning visitation with his kids. Perhaps his anxiety was so intense that it broke right through more literally than anything else had up to that point. Although, as you can see, he didn’t quite manage a complete departure from the surreal.

  We had another month of nothing but randomness from STM, and then, just after one of our best friends revealed that she was pregnant for the first time, we got our next little glimpse of Adam’s life in STM’s exposition:

  “Babies don’t bounce. They don’t bounce!

  Shame.

  It’d be much more fun if they bounced.”

  This regretful warning was most informative for our pregnant friend, I’m sure.

  Another month went by with no midnight mentions of Adam’s waking life. And then we went on our honeymoon, and Adam’s two worlds collided! He babbled nearly every night about the day’s happenings. Our honeymoon was a bit unusual, you see—we spent two weeks volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand—and thus, I believe, it provided plenty of fodder for STM’s interest in the abnormal. It started with this one:

  “Oh, such wrinkly skin. And oh so hairy.

  Yeah, like grandmothers with trunks.”

  No real mystery what he’s talking about there, although it does beg the question of how hairy Adam’s grandmother was. Another night, we had this:

  “Stop bouncing the floor. Stop it, seriously, I need to pee. I need to pee and I can’t pee in the toilet when you’re bouncing the floor … Fuck you shit-for-brains, that’s it, I’m gonna piss up and down your body every time you bounce … There we go.”

  This one was definitely inspired by real life: at the sanctuary, we lived in a raised structure made of mostly bamboo. When anyone from any of the huts walked around, the entire place shook with their footfall. This next one is pretty self-explanatory, given the fact that we were in Thailand:

  “What goes in one hole hot comes out

  the other hole hot. Burning fucking curry.

  Awesome stuff.”

  And finally, for anyone who has ever shoveled elephant poop, this one needs no explanation:

  “Totally green snowballs. Giant ones! They

  look wrong. They sound wrong when they

  hit you. And boy do they smell wrong.”

  I can only hypothesize that our daily experiences started appearing in Adam’s sleep talking because in an elephant sanctuary, a situation as unlike our typical life as you could ask, our day-to-day was suddenly just as interesting as his imagination. Our stint at the sanctuary seemed to throw wide open the portal between Adam’s waking and sleeping lives. Even after we’d returned home to “regular” life, reality cropped up more and more often among the usual bizarre, fanciful musings of STM. STM was inspired by people Adam met, as in this utterance after an evening out entertaining a client with an especially noteworthy beard:

  “My beard can tell a thousand stories.

  My mouth, however, just says, ‘fuck you,

  stop staring at my beard, weirdo.’“

  He was stirred by television shows we had watched, especially our most guilty-pleasure programs, like this little number during our Ghost Hunters phase:

  “I need someone else to help me catch ghosts. ‘Cause we’re going out to kick seven shades of spiritual shit. Yeaaaah. Ghost Kickers! Free floating vapor? Free floating fucker, more like. Come on, let’s get ‘em!”

  And sometimes, he simply replayed—with his own twist—experiences Adam had, like this narration while we were spending a long weekend in Belgium, which is justly famous for its waffle houses:

  “This waffle is my waffle. I will put my ice cream, my sauce, my cream, and even possibly my strawberries on my waffle. And you will watch me eat my waffle. You will watch me as I carefully slice it up bit by bit. You will watch me wipe my mouth and watch me pay. And then you can have some water and we’ll go home. My waffle, your loss.”

  Of course, noticing how often real life was creeping into Adam’s sleep talking, I couldn’t help but try and experim
ent to see if I could willfully influence the content of STM’s musings. Much to Adam’s annoyance, I started addressing STM just before we went to sleep. The first time I tried this, I said, “Sleep Talkin’ Man, are you in there? Listen, I’d really like to hear about manatees tonight, okay? Can you tell me something about manatees?” In response that night, I got:

  “‘Sea cow this’ and ‘sea cow that.’

  Fucking bastard sea cows taking up all the conversation! It’s MY turn to shine.”

  Sounds like STM resented my showing interest in any particular subject matter, rather than his mere existence. Touchy, touchy!

  Another night, he further revealed his refusal to play by anyone else’s rules. Just before we went to sleep, we were Skyping with my friend Jenny. Jenny, a vegetarian herself, signed off the conversation by saying, “Don’t say anything mean about vegetarians tonight!” To this, we got:

  “You know, the world will be a much better place when we get to eat vegetarians.

  Furthermore, you get your five-a-day with one of those.”

  Apparently, STM doesn’t take requests.

  So while real life references do pop up in Adam’s sleep talking—and make a nice addition to the egomaniacal self-praise, scathing insults, and inexplicable surreality, there’s no mistaking it for reality. I can assure you, in his waking hours Adam knows how to share a waffle.

  “I wanted a shark with laser beams, and I got a manatee with a Maglite.

  For fuck’s sake, get back in your hole and get it right.”

  ME: You said, “I wanted a shark with laser beams, and what I got was a manatee with a Maglite.”

  ADAM: The poor manatee.

  ME: Why? It’s just a Maglite, he probably doesn’t even feel it.

  ADAM: He can use it as a weapon as well. He can hit something with it.

  ME: A manatee would never hit anybody.

  ADAM: Out of self-defense, maybe? They’ve got some weight behind them, those manatees. They’re slow, they can creep up on you.

  ME: They creep up on you and just snuggle you!

  ADAM: And then they kiss you with their bristles. They can fight crime with kindness and cuddles …

  ME: Oh, I like that.

  ADAM: … and then hit you over the head with a Maglite.

  If honesty’s the best policy,

  and the truth hurts, then you’d better call an

  ambulance, ‘cause you’re not gonna like the

  stuff I’m gonna fucking say.

  Finger painting’s fun.

  I need to get some more fingers, though.

  Give me your fingers. Oh fuck it, I’ll just cut ‘em off. You’ve got pretty fingers.

  I can do some pretty painting with those pretty fingers. Toes, I can use toes! Yay!

  I’m sorted. Fingers and toes.

  Batman, why don’t you sit down and have a cup of coffee. I feel much more comfortable calling in the marines. Rubber-loving freak. And as for you Robin, put some fucking normal clothes on, dickhead.

  The fruit flies have escaped!

  Hide your plums! Satsumas flee! FLEE!

  Oh, this is gonna be total fruitocide.

  Fuck you, avocado, you’re on your own.

  You’ve got to save the curtains!

  Save the curtains …

  they hold so many secrets.

  By the way, washing in rose water doesn’t

  stop you smelling like a piece of shit.

  Goddammit! Where’s my bazooka?

  I put it on the ground, expecting it to be there when I come back. Have you been tidying up again, ‘cause I really would like my bazooka back. I don’t know where you put things. Jesus! Cannot just leave anything alone, can you?

  “You piss-flap motherfucking tosser!

  No, I DON’T want to say anything else.

  I think that sums you up enough.”

  Okay. Brace yourself. I can’t be held responsible for the fallout. You ready? I Like You. Yeah, rock ’n’ roll.

  Shoot the fucking cellist.

  Pompous cunt with his oversized violin.

  I smell because I’m a PENGUIN and I eat FISH, doofus!

  It’s Captain Fluffer!

  Hero to teenage boys.

  Yay! It’s my birthday today.

  And you’re going to give me presents.

  Big fuck-off presents. Lots of them …

  WHERE ARE MY PRESENTS?! Tossbag.

  I need a mask, nun-chucks, rubber suit, shitloads of talc. Got list, will shop.

  It’s a superhero shopping list, shithead.

  God judges you. Well, I judge God.

  This week: not bad! Still messing up in the Middle East, though. Sort it out.

  Being overweight’s hard work.

  You should applaud my determination.

  No. I don’t talk about the jellybean incident. That’s one wound that’ll take too long to heal.

  So what, vegans are healthier and live longer.

  Let them be the last ones living on a dead planet.

  Kiss my imperial ass,

  you Jedi muthafucka!

  Yeah, I love you.

  But in a not-really kind of way.

  Right then:

  After dinner, it’s butt shaking time.

  Don’t you dare get me up early.

  Especially to get vegan fucking cupcakes.

  What ever possessed you? Eat some mud instead. Tastes the same, and I bet there’s more nutrients in it.

  I’m gonna make you laugh so hard your holes will leak. Wet pants time!

  Here’s what we do:

  We wrestle back control from the pirate gerbils, and the seas will be ours! That’s right, you nasty little sea flumes … Shit, they’re stashing the treasure in their cheeks! Come on!

  Time for some plundering!

  I’ve gotta have more people in my life that love my elbows.

  Step outside, needle-dick bug fucker.

  There’s a whole world out there, and they just want to hate you, too.

  My foot is itching to have a date with your ass.

  And if you really want, we can make it a double date. Your face and ass, my fist and foot.

  From now on, you will OBEY ME. ’Kay?

  Now just nod your head once for yes.

  That’s good.

  Vaginas have brains. Oh, they’ve worked me out. And they don’t like me. Oh!

  My donkey. That’s MY donkey.

  Get off my donkey!

  You know, you’re not some superstar donkey jockey. Piss off.

  Is it a bird? Is it—Oh. It’s Koala Man. Asleep in the branches again, and probably pissed. What an embarrassment to superhero-kind.

  Letter to Sleep Talkin’ Man

  A while back, I was the guest of a dear old friend. One night I got out of bed, walked downstairs, strode right past my host sitting in his easy chair reading, and took off out the front door. His pet raccoon, Racket (evidently figuring I knew where the action was), followed me.

  I walked right across his yard and breezed through his neighbor’s front door, the raccoon hot on my trail, went straight to his refrigerator, snagged a pound of bacon, turned around, and headed back outside.

  On the way out, I patted the head of his neighbor—fifty-nine years old and a Vietnam veteran—and said, “Good boy! Play nice with the ladies,” then strolled back up the hill, gnawing strips of raw bacon, the raccoon plodding along in my wake.

  “Worms for the weak!” I crowed as I headed back into my friend’s house and climbed upstairs with my prize. I crawled back into bed, and Racket the raccoon and I shared a salt-pork feast.

  To add to the delight of this scenario, I was bucknaked the entire time.

  Of course, I only found all this out when I was told about it the next morning, everybody rolling on the floor laughing over it. As proof, Racket had the trots from eating too much bacon. I didn’t remember a damned thing.

  Stony

  Saluda, NC

  “Oh, the penguin pa
rade.

  Splendidly turned out, in his black-and-white coat and beautiful red-and-orange beak. And following him is—It’s dressed exactly the same.

  No imagination, these puffins.

  Boring fuckers, really.”

  There are certain motifs—perhaps you’ve noticed?—that crop up again and again in Adam’s sleep talking. Of course, there’s the high incidence of insults, and the relentless ego-wanking you’re now well familiar with. But beyond those, there are some preoccupations that suggest intriguing things about Adam’s subconscious.

  “You tap-dancing hamsters. You rock my world, with your little blurry feet.”

  Perhaps the most prevalent topic among Adam’s midnight mutterings is animals. Whether it’s gangster manatees, hippo ballerinas, heat-packing badgers, or chickens in fetish costumes, animals get a lion’s share of late night airtime around these parts.

  In the universe of STM, an animal may evoke joy, as in the quote above. Often, however, the creatures that populate STM’s world are clearly jerks:

  “Check out that crab, and his oh-so-sideways attitude.

  Dipshit. No one’s impressed.”

  And occasionally, he comes out with something that would elicit a cringe in any animal lover …

  “Snail fiddling is not an occupation I’d be proud of. You dirty fucker.”

  … Let’s just say I’m pleased not to be a fly on the wall for those dreams.

  It’s no surprise that beasts and critters feature so heavily in STM’s world, as they’re such a big part of Adam’s waking life. The animal kingdom—whether creatures of air, land, or sea—is a passionate interest that Adam and I share. We watch more National Geographic Channel that can possibly be healthy; we can both identify every one of our sixteen goldfish by name; one of the criteria for our next home will be a yard that can accommodate chickens and goats. Even our wedding date was scheduled around the arrival of my dog Molly from the United States, so that she could walk down the aisle with Adam’s children.