Night Time Activities

When I was a kid, my sister would hide behind the door of our bedroom in the dark and try to scare the crap out of me when I came into the room. She mostly did this when I got up to pee at ten-thirty or whenever. I mean, can you imagine this?

You are the oldest child. Responsible. Mature. You share a bedroom with your little sister. The two of you have been lying in your separate beds on separate sides of the room, completely silent, trying to fall asleep. You hear the floor boards creak and see a shadow move. You're all snuggled up in your bed, but when you hear the toilet flush, you think "Oh man! I gotta hide behind the door and scare the shit outta my baby sister when she comes back in!"

I mean, really. I would be padding back into the room, tip toeing and trying to be as quiet as possible so as to not wake her up, when I hear a "boo!" I'd give a blood curdling scream, hit my sister, and crawl back into bed angrily. This happened often, and one time my mother came storming across the house in the middle of the night to tell Jessamy never to do that ever again, because some people were trying to sleep.

Another thing that would happen frequently after bed time is that I would sleep walk. I would climb unconsciously out of my bed and walk around the house, ramming my head accidentally into tables or door frames. I don't know if you've ever tried to walk anywhere while sleeping, but it's hard work. Your eyes may be open, but everything is all wonky. It's worse than trying to not fall over when you are drunk, which I know absolutely nothing about.

I know you've probably heard that it's not good to wake up a sleep walker, but my mother always did. She probably hated me and wanted me to become even more messed up than I already was. What she would do is get a cold washcloth and press it onto my face until I snapped out of my trance. I would immediately forget anything I just did or said. I do, however, remember the time I hit my forehead on the dining room table (I was very short), because it hurt so stinkin' much. I also recollect the time I asked my dad if he could hang a tire swing from the filing cabinet in the office, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it for a long time. But which file would you tie the rope to? T for tree limb, R for rope, or B for brilliant idea?

Now that I think about it, I speculate that my sister was actually jealous of my sleep walking habits. It's not something just anybody can do. Maybe every time I got out of bed to go potty, she thought I had begun to sleep walk. And her kind way of bringing me to reality was jumping me like a gangster in the dark alley ways of Compton, only you, in a floral printed nightgown.

This one time, though, I swear Jessamy was sleep walking. Only she wasn't so much walking as she was sitting up in her bed in the during the night, howling at the moon, growling at me, and then laying back down. It really freaked me out. I thought she was turning into a werewolf, and this was before the days of Twilight and Jacob Black. I was so terrified that I ran into my mom and dad's room, told my mother Jess was turning into a monster, and refused to go back to bed alone. I was eleven years old.

Mom came back to my room, turned on the light, and had to practically shake Jessamy awake. Jess had no idea that she had sat up in bed and howled like a lone coyote in the desert. I knew she wasn't faking it either, because she honestly was so surprised. She only did it the one time (that I know of).

During the summer nights when it was hot and still somewhat light outside, we would tell our mom we were going to bed, then we'd shut the door and pop the screens out of one of the windows. We'd climb out of our makeshift exit and continue to play outside in our pajamas, climbing trees, chasing skunks, and catching bugs. 

When I was 12 and my sister was 14, we would listen to Desperate and Dateless every night at ten o'clock. Our bed time was nine, but our room was clear across the house from our parents. So at 9:55 Jess would tune the radio to Z100, and we would listen to the desperate calls of Portland singles for half an hour. We would guess out of the three date options who the dateless caller would choose. It was typically whomever had the hottest voice. Jessy and I were very disappointed when Desperate and Dateless stopped airing, because where were we going to learn all of our pick up lines after that?

Sharing a bedroom with my sister definitely made for a fun childhood. Just so you know, the entire thing was painted a dusty pink--a color that we both abhorred by about age ten. But we were stuck with it.