Last night I went to bed at ten fifteen; I couldn’t sleep. I tried to lie calmly; I tried to quiet my tired, but spinning, thoughts; I tried to relax: all in vain. When I find my body and mind truly exhausted, but unable to “shut off” to rest, I choose to do a relatively mindless activity; this choice gives the frenetic and repeating circuit of hyper-stimulated brain activity to be safely disabled, and then I can settle down and sleep.

So last night the house was hushed after a humming, hustling and industrious day. In my sleeplessness, I rose from my bed, pulled on some thick, woolen socks and padded softly out to the dining room. I planned to play some mindless rounds of electronic games on the computer.

After arousing my computer from slumber, I apathetically navigated my way through several losing games of Solataire. (I did record one win.) Then, as I “click-click-clicked” through one more game, I heard a noise behind me. It was a kind of “clacking” sound: not very loud, and not very long.

Late nights are always accompanied by a series of strange noises that a person does not hear or take note of during the day. But in the calm and stillness of a house-at-rest, many sounds are seemingly magnified. “Clack-clack”: it was quickly over and it sounded rather “plastic”. I finally turned around to investigate. And there, on the blinds, lying along one of the white horizontal slats, was a large, two-inch long, cockroach. Ug! That was bad enough. But as I rose from my chair to take some sort of action (I’m not sure what I was contemplating),…AAAAAAAAGH!…did you know that cockroaches can FLY?!

That perverse insect flew straight at me, and our tranquil home was no longer at rest. I immediately took evasive action, diving to the floor and screaming very loudly. After breaking my fall with hands and knees, and barely missing contact with a very stationary wall, I continued my retreat. I regained my feet, shaking my head vigorously to dislodge any flying insect that “might” be there. (I had lost sight of the insect, and didn’t know where it might be.) Trying to subdue any residual screams, I ran down the hallway to the bedroom, calling for my husband’s assistance.

A very tired man rose from his bed to meet a wife who was vocally spluttering her disgust and distress concerning large flying insects.

“I didn’t even KNOW they could fly! Did you?” I inquired.

“Where’s the broom?” he responded.

I tried to apologize for waking him with my screams, but when he saw the cockroach, he said, “I probably would have screamed too.”

I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.