Abrupto the Magnificent Works His Magic.....again

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a dream.

Like all good dreams, it is going to sound insane if I try to explain it to you, but it involved a movie lot, a tour of high school kids, and a tsunami scene that, because of its outrageous expense, could only be filmed once and had to be done just right. At this point in the dream, after approving the design of several period-specific posters depicting surfing and other beachside activity, I am putting some carpet remnants and other things in a dumpster. (The fact that I am some kind of art director-cum-production assistant in my own Hollywood-themed dream is something I shall not examine too closely.) Then, the following dialogue takes place.

Me: :throwing stuff away:
The Voice: Kim
Me: What?
The Voice: Kim
Me: What??
The Voice: KIM
Me: WHAT??? I yell it with all my might in the dream. I am annoyed. Also hoping this isn't some kind of Biblical scenario. Because I am annoyed. And I'm not sure The Lord Your God cottons to annoyance.

What follows is not unlike the sensation of surfacing very abruptly from deep water with the sting of chlorine in your nose. Because now I am awake, and aware of the fact that I am not being hailed by God, the director, or anyone else, I am being hailed by my husband.

"Your phone is ringing."

What followed, in short, was me springing out of bed spitting out a blue haze of profanity with the speed and alacrity of someone in a rap battle. Despite nearly sixteen years of hard empirical evidence that I awaken abruptly very very poorly, my husband has determined that it is, at times, appropriate to awaken me by simply starting to speak at full volume when I am sound asleep.

It is one of his least charming propensities. What is worse is that 1)my phone was not ringing, it was a text message and 2) it was his phone anyway. I made the angriest pot of coffee ever in the history of angrily assembled beverages and waited for the adrenaline to dissipate. I recommended to him earnestly that he not open his lips for 30 minutes. He said, "You can just go back to sleep, you know."

Clearly he needs to reinventory the number and variety of weapons in this house.

Friday, October 12th, 5:45am. I go to turn over and open my eyes briefly. My husband is sitting bolt upright in bed with his cellphone in his hand as a makeshift flashlight. In his wide-awake voice, he initiates this exchange.

Him: "They're back,"

Me (wide awake and having a sudden flash of Carol Ann touching the TV screen or Regan telling a befuddled astronaut 'You are going to die up there' before she pees on the carpet and starts sending priests out the window): "What the hell are you talking about?"

Him: "The mice. They are chewing in the walls. I can hear them."

Me: "We never had mice in the walls in this house. We get a couple of squirrels in the attic when it gets cold, that's it."

Him: "Well, they're back. I can hear them."
(Note that the cat, nested between  us on the bed, hears nothing, starts at nothing, and could not possibly care less.)

Me: "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

Him: "Zzzzzzz...."

And so another morning began with an unwelcome dash of lucidity, with me staring wide-eyed and wide awake into the black, watching it turn to blue gray while I listened to the cat and my husband snoring in complimetary rhythm. And the gentle scrabble of squirrels in my ceiling.