Sleepwalking

Two blogs I read today had posts about sleepwalking incidents. Here is my sleepwalking story. Names have been changed to protect myself from these people getting really mad at me.

I was babysitting a little girl named Lily when I was in middle school. Lily was very cute and liked nothing more than playing with her Bert doll (from Sesame Street), and me reading The Monster at the End of This Book (starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover) in funny voices. Including the shouting.

In retrospect, it is not the best idea to get a five-year-old all riled up by yelling and laughing right before she goes to sleep, but I was twelve and dumb. And Lily did fall asleep. Once she stopped getting out of bed to ask for things ("Can I have a glass of water?" "Can Bert have a glass of water?" "Will you play hide and seek with me?" "Do you want a glass of water?"), I sat down to watch their copy of Jurassic Park (I was a little obsessed with Jurassic Park in middle school. I bought a pair of hiking boots because I was convinced I was going to become a paleontologist, and there was at least a month of Study Hall when I read nothing but Jurassic Park, going back to the beginning of the book as soon as I reached the end).

The movie was just about to the part when the guy gets eaten by the T-Rex on the toilet when I heard Lily get out of bed again. I expected her to come in and ask for a glass of water, or a Fruit-Roll-Up, or a puppy, but instead she went into the hallway linen closet.

"Um, Lily?" I asked her, going over to the closet. She did not reply, so I asked, "What are you doing in there?"

"Towels," she said, sitting down on the floor. "I have to go."

"What?" I was confused. "Go where?"

"I have to GO," she said, adjusting her seat.

"Go wh- OH!" I said, waving my hands around in distress. "How about you GO over here, in the bathroom?"

"Okay," she said, standing up rather unsteadily and following me into the bathroom. She got herself all set up and did her thing while I waited in the hallway.

"Are you okay?" I asked, peeking into the bathroom after a long moment. I was just in time to see Lily throw her toilet paper... right... into... the bathtub. I would have thought this entirely gross, but I was laughing and Lily was making her way back to bed, zombie-like.

Awesome.

Another time, I was at a hotel with my family. My sister and I were sharing a bed (which, sidenote, is not the easiest thing when the person your sister sleeps on all the pillows at the same time). In the middle of the night, my sister sat up in bed.

"What a great idea!" she said.

"Huh?" said my mom.

My sister went to the door of the hotel room and opened it. "Great idea!"

"Not a great idea!" said my mom, and caught her before she went out into the hallway.

I'm almost sure I have never walked in my sleep. The closest I've probably ever come was in high school, when I woke up in my bed at my parents' house and saw that the last two numbers on my digital clock read :42. My school bus came at 5:44! I was going to miss it!

I leaped out of bed, threw on some shoes, grabbed my backpack, ran down the stairs and out down the street.

It's 5:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 5:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 5:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 12:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 12:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 12:42! I'm going to... wait. It's... crap.

And I turned around, walked back to the house, and went to bed. Because it was 12:42 AM, and I, inexplicably, thought that was the same as 5:42 AM.

Weird.

(Also weird, this post is dated yesterday. I'm from the fuuuuuuture, everyone! Tomorrow people will post on their blogs about sleepwalking! You'll see!)