Breadpudding

I’m sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, perched uncomfortably on the edge of one of those vinyl covered raised beds with the thin and crispy white paper crunching under my ass as I fidget with my toes and hands and yank on the poor mistreated strand of hair that’s been abused since the early nineties. The nurse with the half grown-out perm and purple scrubs keeps asking me questions and I can tell from the tone of her voice that she thinks I’m crazy or that I’m just taking up space in her room, hoping to score some Xanax. I want to tell her I have no interest in Xanax or in being crazy and that I can feel her Judging Vibes emanating from her person like stank on a skunk and yes, I may have judged her for her lackluster perm but she makes up for it with some of the prettiest brown hair I’ve ever seen, all shiny and smooth, at least on the part that’s grown free of the perm’s wrath. But the room is so chilly and quiet and deep down I know that offering up more than the date of my last menstrual cycle or my list of drug allergies is going to be met with an even deader dead stare so my mouth, it stays shut and I just stifle back the jaw-cracking yawn waiting to make it’s grand debut.

I don’t tell the nurse much more than the normal “I’m not sleeping well” speech, the one that involves just the barest of details, like how I once put a pencil and paper beside my pillow and each time I woke up I just made a nice little tick-mark and when I got up the next morning, guess how many swipes I’d made at that little paper? Seventeen. Now ask me again why I’m always tired. Ask me.

So the doctor comes in and while he acts concerned, he’s skeptical that someone would be able to function if they slept as little as I say I do and then I tell him about the time that I hallucinated bloody beating hearts on my pretty oak floor and his first thought is probably which anti-psychotic to put me on but I try and make it perfectly clear that I’m not crazy, I’m just crazy tired and for the love of everything holy, just give me something to make me sleep. I tell him I’d give up The Crush, The Demonspawn AND pepperjack cheese for one good solid night of blissful slumber and it’s then, naturally, that I tear up because this doctor is ignoring almost everything I’m saying and is handing me a questionnaire that I’m supposed to fill out, one which will magically indicate if I’m at risk for becoming a serial killer due to my depressive nature.

When I’m finished I hand the paper back and he scans my responses and finally admits that I’m probably not depressed and I reign in my urge to scream in frustration because This Is What I’ve Been Telling Him, over and over and over. Look, I’m on Brooke Shields side here. If a little bit of Zoloft or Lithium or Welbutrin gets you out of bed in the morning then by all means, take it. I support you. And I realize this man only sees me when I’m sneezing out infected green globules and maybe I just don’t do a good job of making myself clear but please understand, Mr. Doctor-Man, that I’m not one to circumvent something and should I feel like question ten, the one where I had to rate my desire to keep living, is bordering on something below a 9.8, don’t worry, I’ll tell you.

So he leaves the room and comes back with a trial pack of something-or-other and tells me that we’re going to try this version first and to come back in a month to reevaluate this whole not sleeping thing and I literally skip out to my car, if skipping is really just a slightly faster than normal walk, because I realize I’ve only got four short hours before I can pop open this package and cuddle up in my bed for some Blissful Slumber. I make it through the last hour at work and then the two hours at the animal shelter (for my speeding sins) and then I’m walking in the front door with that packet in hand, already ripping off the back cover and popping a small white pill into my hand.

And all I got to say is that Children’s Tylenol has more game than this shit and if you think I’m waiting until August to reevaluate ‘this whole not sleeping thing’ then THINK AGAIN, Mr. Doctor-Man.