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By: Doug Speirs Posted: 2:01 AM CDT Saturday, May. 28, 2022
Six months into retirement, my life is more exciting than ever.
Six months into retirement, my life is more exciting than ever.
That’s because at the tender age of 65 I have been transformed into an action hero — at least in my dreams.
When I was younger, my dreams were decidedly dull. For example, I can clearly recall one dream that consisted entirely of me visiting Eaton’s to buy a pair of winter gloves. No thrills, no spills, no X-rated content. Just buying a pair of (bad word) gloves.
But it would be putting it mildly to say things have changed now that I have more time on my hands. Now — and the bumps and bruises on my body are proof of this — it appears as if my dreams are trying to kill me.
Consider what happened earlier this week when I was lying in bed with my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, and our two fluffy white mutts, Bogey and Juno.
I was snoring away contentedly (at least I assume I was) when, in my dream, I decided to open our garage door using both my hands, because apparently our automatic door opener doesn’t function in Dream Land.
So I hoisted the door open and, with a sense of ominous foreboding, peered into the inky depths of the garage … WHICH IS WHEN A MONSTER REACHED OUT AND GRABBED ME!
OK, I didn’t actually see the monster but my mind told me it was something really scary and that if I didn’t act quickly it would probably eat me, which is when, summoning all of my might, I lashed out under the covers with one of my legs in hopes of kicking the monster in a sensitive area we do not normally discuss in family newspapers.
When I tried to kick the monster in my dream, however, what happened in real life was that I flung my body out of bed and plummeted to the hardwood floor in our bedroom, where I lay on my back, groaning like an injured woodland creature.
If you had been there, it would have sounded like this: "AIEEEE!!! (That was me screaming) … BONK!!! (That was the sound my head made when it bashed into my night table on the way to the floor) … and OOOOOOF!!! (That was the sound of all the air exploding out of my lungs when I hit the floor)."
Within seconds, my sleeping wife bolted upright, flicked on the lights and I saw her moony face, along with the dogs’ fuzzy mugs, peering down at me from on top of the bed.
"Why are you on the floor?" my spouse politely inquired.
"Monster," I explained after coming to my senses.
If it was just the one alarming dream encounter, I wouldn’t be worried, but it seems this latest incident is part of a disturbing trend wherein I end up flinging myself out of bed in the middle of the night.
Roughly a month ago I was snoozing happily in real life, while in my dreams I was forced to do battle with a band of terrorists on a commercial airplane. In the dream, I was lying on the floor of the jet while one of the hijackers, clutching a machine gun, stood over me and cackled in an evil movie-villain manner.
Which is when the action hero part of my sleeping brain kicked in and basically said: "I saw in a movie once where Chuck Norris was in a similar situation and he did a really cool scissor-style kick, toppled the bad guy, and everything worked out perfectly."
So, of course, that’s what I did — kicking my legs in what I assumed was a ninja-worthy scissor-style motion, which resulted in me flinging my entire body out of bed and crashing to the bedroom floor with all the grace of a 320-pound sack of potatoes.
Again, my wife had to flick on the lights and stare down as I lay there, wheezing and sniffling, like the world’s largest beetle stuck on its back.
"Why are you on the floor?" she demanded, wiping sleep from her eyes.
I pondered this for a moment, then looked up at her and bravely replied: "Terrorists!"
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These nighttime encounters have taught me a hard lesson — as painful as it is to fling yourself out of bed in the middle of a scary dream, it’s not nearly as painful as trying to get your aging, pyjama-less body off the floor and back into bed.
What with being as flexible as a propane barbecue, the only way I can get up off the floor is if I first roll over onto my belly, crawl onto my knees, then have my wife use a bathroom towel as a sort of tow rope to help tug me back onto my feet.
After the last incident, wherein I bashed my head on the night table while falling to the floor, I wandered into our bathroom to check myself out in the mirror before climbing back into bed.
Before we went back to a hopefully dreamless sleep, my wife looked at me with a confused expression and made this helpful observation: "Your face doesn’t look so good, dear."
Which is when I flicked off the lights, rolled over and, with all the dignity I could muster, grunted: "Yeah, but you should see the other guys!"
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