Consequences

...wrote this on September 18, 2012, for Prompt Club. Still effective.

The alarm clock disturbed her dream.  She groaned.  Why did the best dreams always occur in the six minutes between snooze buttons?   McSteamy had just bent his head down to hers.  His breath was warm on her face and his lips were almost touching hers when the buzzing alarm intruded. 

Crap. 

She barely had her eyes open as she made her side of the bed and shuffled down the stairs to where her pitiful slice of heaven existed; the coffee pot and the pack of Salem Slim Light 100’s she left in front of the coffee pot the night before.  She stroked the pack of cigarettes.  “Hello, darlings.” She let out a dry, sad chuckle at her own joke.  She shouldn’t feel this crappy in the mornings at just 50 years old. 

Joan poured the coffee that had automatically made itself sometime between the second and third snooze buttons, added cream and then grabbed the ashtray off the counter. 

She sat down with her two vices and lit the first of many cigarettes for the day and inhaled deeply, the acrid smoke nestling into her lungs and making her cough up what her husband would have referred to as lung butter.  She got up and spat it into the garbage can, careful not to look at the sputum. 

She missed her husband. 

Of course, if she wanted to see him again, all she had to do was quit smoking. 

** 

Months earlier, they both had been sitting at this very kitchen table, having the age old fight over smoking. 

Bert had seethed.  “What is it going to take to get you to quit smoking?  Do you have any idea what you’re doing to your body?  I quit twenty years ago.  If I can quit, anyone can.” 

Joan rolled her eyes.  “Don’t be so friggin dramatic, Bert.  I’ll quit when I quit.”  She avoided his eyes, remembering a few days ago when she had coughed blood.  It had actually scared her into not smoking for almost a whole hour.   

Bert rolled his eyes and spoke as if to a child.  “Yes, but I quit.  For you.  But you seem to want to smoke every single cigarette ever made.  When do WE matter?”  At that, Bert had reached over and covered her little dainty hand with his burly one while he looked into her eyes.   

“Joan, I married you for a reason.  And that was to spend my life with you.  I don’t want to see it cut short by these damn things.”  He shook his head sadly.  “Will you at least try to quit?” 

Joan sighed.  After 20 years of marriage, she knew her Bert and he wasn’t going to drop it.   

“Fine.”   It’ll never happen. 

He slapped his hands together and hooted, then skipped over to his coat, withdrawing a brochure.  He waved it at her as he approached. 

“This.  This is going to be the answer for you.  One of the guys at work talked about it; how great this program was for him.”

The slick brochure was colorful.  It showed healthy people cavorting around soccer fields, the obvious message being “look, we’re not short of breath!”  It made vague promises about helping kick the habit for good.  Curiously, only couples could apply.   

“I’ll make the appointment!” chirped Bert, as he ran down the hall to his office. 

** 

The doctor took her weight, height, looked down her throat.  Snapped a chest x-ray and muttered to himself right in front of her as he read it.   

Joan couldn’t take the silence.  “Well?” 

The young, solemn looking doctor patted her knee.  “You can do this.  You have to do this.  You have the lungs of a 70 year old woman.  If you want to make it another 40 years, you will quit today.” 

Geez, don’t beat around the bush, Doctor.  She avoided her husband’s eyes.  

“What do I have to do?” Joan asked. 

The doctor reached over and plucked the pack of cigarettes out of her purse.  “First off, you’re going to leave those with me.  Second, you are not going to smoke again.  Ever.” 

Joan laughed.  “Really.  Just like that.  You wouldn’t know if I smoked, anyway.”  She waved a careless hand in his direction. 

Suddenly, the young, solemn looking doctor leaned forward and grabbed her chin in a cruel vise grip.  “Joan.  Listen to me.  Your husband has just paid me an exorbitant amount of money to help you quit smoking.  You will quit.  And if you smoke even one cigarette, we will know, and there will be consequences.  Do you understand me?”   

Holy crap.  He was serious.  “What consequences?” she squeaked out. 

“Consequences.”

** 

That first night went well, with ghastly cravings from time to time, but she put on a brave face.  I got this. 

The next morning, she got up with her husband, made the bed, and packed his lunch for the workday.   As she handed it to him, he gave her a gentle smile as he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.  “I’m so proud of you.”   

She ran upstairs the second his car pulled out of the driveway.  Did he think she didn’t have a spare pack?  Shaking her head, a smile curved her lips.  Knowing she had a forbidden pack of cigarettes was almost orgasmic.  She stood in the bathroom and inhaled deeply, exhaling out the window.  Just this one.  The nicotine coursing through her system made her feel faint.   

The phone rang.  She gave a guilty start and threw the cigarette in the toilet. 

She recognized the doctor’s voice immediately.  His message was short and sweet.  “Joan, we know.”  The phone went dead.   

Joan’s heart was in her throat.  Gee, he sounded awfully sinister.   

She threw away the rest of the pack and debated telling her husband about her slipup.  I’ll decide when he gets home. 

Several hours later, right about the time she expected him home, she received a blocked, concise text message.  “You smoked.  We have your husband.” 

Consequences. 

She drove as fast as she could back to the smoking cessation clinic.  The sign had been taken down.  No lights were on.  She pressed up against the window and felt fear as she saw the interior was completely empty of furniture.  She banged on the window anyway.   

“Please. It was only half. I threw the rest away.  Bert!  Bert!”  She slid to the ground, sobbing.   

She huddled all night long near the window, ignoring the stares of passers by, only going home, alone, when dawn tinted the sky a light, smoky gray, heralding a new day.

Sandman! Oh, Sandman!

For a while, I wasn't sleeping at all at night.  Total insomnia.  To the point that I started worrying a little bit after oh, say 9:00 p.m.  I built it up in my head.  I know I won't be able to sleep.  I know it.  I'll get into bed and lay there for hours.  I was tired, exhausted even; but the minute my head hit the pillow I laid there, wide awake. 

here's me.  not sleeping.

Things got better for a while, thanks to my good friend Southern Comfort.  I was able to break through whatever it was keeping me awake and actually get some real rest at night.  Whatever cycle I had been experiencing was over, apparently.  
 

At least, that's what I thought. 

 

It was a Sunday like many other Sundays.  The cars started. It rained but we didn't get water in our basement.  The dog didn’t run away.  Dinner was good.  Nothing earth shattering.   
 

However, Sunday night around 10:30 p.m., my husband and I kissed each other good night, as we always do, cuddled for approximately 10.7 seconds until it got wayyyy too hot, and then turned over to our respective spots.  I hadn't even given my sleeplessness a thought.  I burrowed further into the covers.   

And laid there.  A half hour went by.  I knew my husband was awake.  He knew I was awake too because he says my eyes make a sound when I blink.   

We laid there some more.  And laid there.  Another half hour went by and…  

…we’re still awake.  And I’m thinking, what the hell?  

I get up and pee to break the monotony.  I am quiet and careful, reluctant to jostle my husband or bounce the bed.  I know where the squeaky floorboards are and avoid them, drawing on years of experience with fretful babies and a father who worked midnights.  I don't use any lights, even in the bathroom.  I climb back into bed with the stealth of a ninja. 

Having taken care of that, I snuggle back down.  I think, any time now I’ll fall fast asleep.  I close my eyes and try to count sheep but end up mentally composing a story about them instead. 

I hear my son come in at midnight.  He doesn't wake me up because I'm not asleep.  He knows after years of sneaking in how to hold the bells on the door so they don't make a noise when he opens it.  He too is familiar with the floorboards and is able to avoid the squeaky ones.  He pees and goes to bed.   

Now my husband gets up to pee.  He is not silent and careful like I am.  He was a bachelor for 45 years and never had to be quiet for a sleeping wife or child.  Everyone knows he's up because he uses every light he can on the endless ten foot trip to the bathroom.  He has owned the home longer than my children have drawn breath and yet doesn't know the path to take on the wooden boards to avoid making excess noise. 

He stomps back to our room and swings himself back into bed like an orangutan, then proceeds to thrash around on the bed trying to get comfortable.  Good God, I think.  He moves more than a kid in a bouncy house. 

Unbelievable.  I wait until he is settled and I blink several times in a row, loudly, in retaliation. 

Shortly after he gets back to bed, my daughter is up.  She has inherited her mother's ability to walk catlike in a sleeping household.  She also has inherited her mother's sneakiness and I know she's going outside to have a cigarette.  She is fooling no one.    She too knows to hold the bells on the door as she comes back in and creeps back to her room, stopping in the bathroom, also to pee. 

Ok, I think.  Now that we’ve all ensured there would be no bedwetting, we’ll all get to sleep. 

Husband whispers to me.  "Are you awake?"

 

I whisper back. "Yes, what’s the deal with this?  I’m so tired and I just can’t fall asleep!  Is there some giant geometry test I didn’t study for?  A project I didn’t turn in?  Because the only time I can’t sleep is when I’m fretting.  And for the life of me, I don’t have anything to really fret about."

Husband whispers again. "I can’t sleep either!  And I think Annie is smoking!"

No shit, Sherlock, I think.  Only for like six months now.  Out loud, I say, "Gosh, I hope not."  And then I think, why are we whispering, anyway?  We're all awake.

During the course of the sleepless night from hell, husband ends up sleeping in the living room on his chair.  I must be experiencing some sort of menopausal symptoms, as I am either freezing or too hot, and eventually make my own way out to the living room as well where I lay wide eyed on the couch for two hours, with a floor fan three inches from my face.

4:41 a.m.  I haven’t slept at all.  I briefly drift off and dream I'm in a wind tunnel.

4:42 a.m.  Husband turns on a new age music channel on cable.  It reminds me of the nightmare that was his deviated septum surgical recovery and I fight the urge to throw up.

5:00 a.m.  We should probably just stay up.  However, I don't come from a family of quitters.  I get up and stumble down the hallway to the much more comfortable bed and that's all I remember, because I sink into the most blissful sleep anyone has ever experienced. 

For about one hour.  It's not enough.  I'm so tired and frustrated I want to punch someone.  However, it is at this time I smell fresh coffee. 

One thing my husband manages to do quite well is the coffee.  And I firmly believe that today, it's probably saving his life.

 

Smoking in bed

I woke up this morning with a terrible guilty conscience.  I actually smoked a cigarette while laying in bed right next to my husband, and when I was done with it, I put it out in a plastic cup with half an old beer in it.  Sooooo sexy.

because I'm pretty sure I was wearing this in my dream. 

Other people dream about winning the lottery, or playing baseball, or having sex with Brad Pitt.  (for the record, Brad Pitt is not anywhere on my to-do list.)

But what do I dream about?  Smoking and putting it out in a nasty, warm cup of beer?  What is THAT all about? 

I looked it up in my dream journal and there were several blatherings on about what it could mean to smoke in your dream.  The biggest one was that "to use it warns you against enemies and extravagance."   Well, that really made me laugh because those who know me know that I am not close to extravagant.  That is unless you count bringing two cheese sticks to work instead of one extravagant.  Then hell yes, I am.  I like cheese, all right?

And enemies?   I don't have any.  Well, there was that lady at the grocery store who eyed my typed grocery list enviously.

What did catch my attention was the part where they discuss what it means to dream about liquor. 

"For a woman to dream about drinking or handling liquor foretells for her a happy Bohemian kind of existence.  (yes, that's true.) She will be good natured but shallow minded.  (shallow minded, yes, yes, also true.)  To treat others, she will be generous to rivals, and the indifference of lovers or husbands will not seriously offset her pleasures or contentment."  (How do they KNOW ME like this?)

I was surprised that the book says nothing about laying next to your husband smoking a cigarette on the sly and then putting out a cigarette in a plastic cup of beer.  Hm.  It would seem to me that this type of dream would be had by a great many people and an entire chapter should be devoted to it.  Surely I can't be the ONLY ONE.

However, I think sometimes the interpretive dream books sometimes miss the point altogether.  Sometimes your dreams are as simple as you saw something on TV, or a certain conversation you had, or what you saw on line or heard at work.  For instance, I dream about writing a lot.  Makes sense, since I write a lot.  I dream about babies because I have a new granddaughter.  I dreamed about smoking because sometimes I miss it, even though I quit back in 1999.

As for the beer, I think they nailed it. 

I'm a good natured Bohemian-like, laid back kind of gal, and I like to drink.

Welcome to my world!