ACT 24: New years resolution

3 Score and last year I wrote a resolution to never make another new years resolution. I promptly broke that resolution with my next resolution which was not to eat another cookie. By the way I broke that resolution after finding out that we did indeed have more milk in the fridge. So this year I would like to complicate things a little less by making a resolution to break all new years resolutions within 4 days of new years. But the problem with that is that if my resolution is to break all resolutions I will not be able to complete my resolution to break all resolutions by breaking the aforementioned resolution. So who is with me so far? I lost my train of thought around cookie and just kept typing resolution as often as possible until I found it again. Really the purpose of this post is to punish those of you with hangovers from the night before. I set out to use the word resolution to give you the worst headache you have ever had, which should be working because I am very sober and I can feel a massive migraine forming behind my eyes. Why you ask? Because I hate people telling me that I need to make a resolution each year. So really my resolution is to make you pay for your resolution to make me make a resolution. Oh and just to make sure resolution, resolution, resolution, that’s right I hate you. In case you are wondering the word resolution appears 25 times. Happy New Year.

Act 23 How To Ruin The Holidays: Insomniac Style

I don’t sleep much. And the more I think about it the more I realize how far back it goes. So this is to share with you how I have ruined various holidays with my insomnia. Christmas: Now every child has had a Christmas where they had trouble falling asleep. The lights outside the window are bright and inviting and the excitement that has been building is almost palpable. Relatives are coming into town and the sugar high that you have been on for the past 48 hours doesn’t help. But when the sugar stops flowing and the threat that if you don’t go to sleep Santa will not come finally takes over and eventually the sugar plumb effect takes over and normal children drift off to peaceful slumber. On the other hand, as an insomniac, sugar only refuels the batteries you have in reserve and the thoughts that just won’t die make it all but impossible to dose off without a drink of water and two Nyquil chasers. So around 4 in the morning when it was pretty self evident that sleep would completely evade me I decided to get a glimpse at the fat man myself. I could hear the deep breathing of my two brothers I shared a room with and decided that the time was right. Ever so softly I crept from my bed hearing every sound I made amplified in the darkness. My first instinct was to just jump out at Santa but then I decided that that would probably put me on the top of the naughty list so I needed another plan. I knew that my parents sometimes checked on us to make sure that we were asleep and I figured if I could fool them then maybe Santa’s sixths sense for unruly tots might also be flawed. So I hatched a daring plan. Now the Christmas trees when I was a boy where massive. Towering in the corner of the living room across from the fire place, so I knew there would be enough light to see the elf slave master. But I needed to make sure that he didn’t see me. So I wrapped myself in wrapping paper for better camouflage worm crawled under the tree and strategically placed the few gifts that where already under the tree into a kind of box fortress from which I could peek out through the arrow slit like cracks. Then to make sure that I was covered I broke a branch off of the back of the tree with ornaments on it and put it on my back. That’s right, I was a 5 year old kid wrapped in tinsel and wrapping paper hiding under the recess of the Christmas tree with presents piled in front of me in the configuration of a castle wall with a heavy branch draped over my head and shoulders stabbing me mercilessly with those evergreen needles and dripping sap in my hair. It was a hiding place that Rambo himself would have been proud to call his own. This is how I found out that there was no Santa and silently wept under the tree as I saw my mom and dad eating the cookies we left out. Insomnia 1 Christmas 0. Let me fast forward you to Easter. I know that New Years is next but that is kind of the unofficial insomniac holiday so it is hard to ruin with not sleeping. Unless you count the fact that you didn’t sleep for the five days prior to the New Years and actually have trouble staying awake the one day a year it is socially acceptable to do so. Damn Insomnia 1 New Years 0. Ok so Easter I always had trouble sleeping because I was on the top bunk bed and the heater was positioned just above my face and not only was it extremely uncomfortable bellowing scorching air directly into my face but every time it turned on it woke me up and owing to my condition falling asleep is quite hard. So Easter, I get up when the heat kicked in at 3 in the morning and decided to get a head start on finding those ever elusive Easter eggs the bunny so aptly hides. So I sneak outside with a flash light looking for brightly colored hardboiled breakfast in the grass. But after looking for an hour I found nothing. Now I am skeptical mainly because I had found out the same year that Santa was in fact not real so I go inside the house and find the basket of Easter eggs sitting in the fridge not touched by fluffy bunny hands. I waited a few more minutes hoping maybe that the hoppity hider might suddenly appear but by this time it was 5 in the morning and I was growing weary that my childhood might be slipping away so I bucked up my courage and went to the only person I knew could reassure me; my Mom. I silently slipped into their room where they where fast asleep and gently roused her so not to wake my Dad. All that I wanted was for her to lie to me so that my fading innocents could be restored so I said, “ Mom the Easter bunny hasn’t come yet the eggs haven’t been hidden.” Now there is something that I didn’t know at this point about my Mother. That when woken from a state of deep sleep she is the most honest person you will ever meet, also she will not remember what she told you the next day. So this is how the conversation went down;
“Mom the Easter bunny didn’t come yet the eggs haven’t been hidden.”
“Oh I completely forgot. Would you do it for me?”
Sniff…..Sniff…”ok Mom” sniff….sniff…… Yes that was me holding back tears as my mom returned to peaceful dreams while I went outside in the early morning air and hid the eggs for my brothers and sisters so that they didn’t find out that the Easter bunny was in fact a lie. Insomnia 1 Easter 0. So for the final tally that is Insomnia 3 Holidays 0 Insomnia wins again. Actually lets give insomnia 1 more point because I wrote this at 4:30 in the morning and have to be ‘up’ in a half an hour for work as always insomnia wins again.

Act 22: Gingerbread, Gumdrops, and Assault Rifles

Santa Clause’s sleigh might be a little late this year. Satellite movements over his compound in the North Pole have recently uncovered a massive arms facility masquerading as a toy workshop. Santa, who started his career as a kind toy maker that only wanted to bring joy to the children of the world, quickly realized that there was no money in it for retirement. So going where the money led him he started dabbling in prototype weapons made from candy canes that fire gumdrops at astounding speeds leaving their target sticky and in need of a nap. The weapon was to be called ‘the sugar shocker’ but was quickly put off the production line because the market had just been flooded with the new IHOP ‘rooty tooty point and shooty assault rifle.’ Not to be stopped by his first failed attempt Santa began anew. He sought out new clients and started trade negotiations with the Leprechaun League Liberation front. They where a small organization but made up for it with literal buckets of gold. That’s when Santa put out one of his best sellers ‘The Christmas cheer’ side loaded shoulder mounted gingerbread bazooka. Upon being shot with this decorative, limited edition, individually numbered explosive, a target is filled with a warm sensation coupled with an urge to buy things at ridiculous prices and start singing off tune in the freezing cold. His profits soared and he was able to put more items on the black market such as the ‘chimney to chimney teleportation pad’, the ‘know when you are sleeping GPS tracker’, and ‘the Naughty list’ a virtual who’s who of people in the underside of society (and Jimmy who won't stop pulling Sally’s hair). Not to worry though. There is a raid planned on the facility in the North Pole for late December as it seems that he is gearing up for a big shipment. They aren’t worried about the fat man escaping since they captured one of his rein deer team and implanted him with a red glowing tracking device. The assault team is also looking into child labor laws being violated since it seems that everyone in the factory is less than 4 feet tall and it seems to be visited once a year by a band of misfit kids that are trying to save Christmas. So by the end of the month after the tear gas settles the world will be a safer place knowing that one of the oldest arms dealers is put safely away behind bars. Merry Christmas everyone.