I am a delicate flower. Yo.

Once upon a not-so-very long time ago, I could sleep anywhere. That only sounds illicit, but I didn’t say with anyone, but anywhere. Long plane rides were never a problem (the one exception being the Ireland flight of 1998, followed immediately by the infamous Dublin Death March, which resulted in a personal record of 30 hours wide awake), sleepovers were fine, and on a college camping trip I once spent a blessed night of slumber in the bed of a pickup truck with nary a twinge.

My, how times have changed. I might still feel 20, but my body is hell-bent on reminding me that there are only a few short months before I’m officially double that.

Purely by accident my beloved husband stole my pillow last night. He was incoherently exhausted and I didn’t notice until too late as I was deep into a book for far too long into the night. He said I should have woken him, but it would have taken the Blue Angels screaming through the room to accomplish that, and their appearances have been cut due to the sequester, so that option was out. I did have to draw the line at snoring loud breathing. By God I wasn’t going to go comfy pillowless with sound effects.

He snoozed blissfully. I embarked on a comfy pillowless might complete with insomnia, bizarro dreams that faded away when the alarm rang leaving only unsettled nerves, and a chronically stiff neck and jaw pissed off at the world. Needless to say I was attached to the coffeepot most of the day, and from this evening forward I am instituting a new evening ritual called “pillow check.” It’ll be a 10-step process that looks something like this:

1. My pillow.
2. Your pillow.
3. Repeat.
4. Double check.
5. Repeat.
6. Repeat.
7. Turn it over to the cool side.
8. Repeat.
9. Elbow away the snoring loud breathing.
10. Repeat.

In fact, sleep sounds delightful. I believe I shall indulge in some now.