The Delta House

I have been getting increasingly tired at work the past few days, so I decided to go to bed really early last night. My wife was also tired, so we all turned in around 8pm. I figured that nine solid hours of sleep might help me get out of this funk that I have been in for the past couple of weeks, and it started out pretty good.

That was until the wind started whipping around outside around 10:30pm. Well, Spike is a fearless little guy in most cases, but he gets all freaked out when he hears loud blowing wind (you remember Spike right?). So he jumps off the bed and starts nervously circling the bed, his little nails clicking all the while on the hardwood floor. Then he starts whining because he wants to be back on the bed. Finally, I scoop him up and put him back on the bed.

I must have set him too close to our other dog Gizmo because she jumped up and started attacking him. I separate them and manage to calm them down a little. Of course all of this noise wakes up my wife and Jake.

By now it’s getting close to 11pm and I’m thinking, no big deal, I still have 6 hours to sleep. I roll over and fall back to sleep. My wife nurses Jake a little and he falls asleep, then she does as well.

At 11:30, my cell phone rings and wakes me up. It is work asking me if I am still working in our New Haven site. The site that I left at 3:30pm! Apparently I forgot to log out so they were calling to check with me. I go back to the bedroom and fall asleep again.

At 12:30 Jake wakes up and is really awake. No boob juice is going to put him to sleep unless my wife had taken like 6 Ambien an hour before and it had found its way into her breast milk. So I wake up again. Knowing that I need to get some sleep so I can get up for work, my wife mercifully takes Jake into the living room to let him play for a while.

OK, back to sleep. Around 2:30am, the house alarm starts beeping. Not sounding the alarm itself, but beeping like someone is opening a door that has a sensor on it. It beeps once, then about 30 seconds later, beeps again. This goes on for about 5 minutes, then I finally get up and go to the control panel. The display says “Low Battery” telling me that I need to replace the backup battery in the basement. I press a couple of buttons and it stops, so I lay back down.

No more than five minutes later, it starts with the beeping again. This time I get the manual from the kitchen drawer and start reading how to shut it down. A few more keystrokes and it stops. It is now 3:00 and I am getting really tired of this nonsense, but I try to go back to sleep anyway.

At about 4:00, it starts beeping again. This time, I go to the basement to disconnect the battery, a trick that has worked in the past. The only problem is that the alarm box is below the basement steps and I have a ton (literally) of wood pellets stacked up under there. I needed to move about twelve 40 pound bags to get to it, but I finally get the battery unplugged. I head back upstairs, push a few buttons on the control pad and lay back down.

Beep!

That’s it! I’d had enough. I picked up my pillow, shut the door to our bedroom, went to the front guest bedroom, set the alarm for 5:30, and went to sleep. Finally, a little peace and quiet.

About 4:45, my wife and Jake come in and lay down next to me, waking me up yet again. I fall back to sleep for what seemed like about 30 seconds and then the alarm clock went off. Time to shit, shave and shower, then off to work I go.

So needless to say, I am more tired today than I have been anytime this week. I have a ton of stuff to do over the weekend, so there will be no rest forthcoming. Plus, I have to get a new $40 battery for that stupid alarm!

Anyway, I hope that your weekend looks nothing like this. Have a great one!