Simple Things

Simple Things

It was a dark and stormy night…and then it became the wee hours of the morning.  Suddenly I was aware how important sleep was to me.  The value of it was never appreciated until it was interrupted. 

2:18 AM Chow Maine thinks she is in combat and starts doing laps around the perimeter of the bed to make sure the hatches are closed. 

2:37 AM Tall Cool ☺ne has had enough after the fourth lap pouncing on his pillow across the headboard to my pillow and then leaping to the floor with a loud plop as if she weighed 40 pounds.  He gets up and she runs out of the bedroom; he closes the door saying something about that’s enough of her.

3:01 AM I can’t take her scratching and clawing at the door any longer — it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.  I get up with the flash light, open the door and she peaks around the corner of the couch as if to say, “Want to play?”  I walk over to her dish and say, “Come here,” which she thinks she is going to get a treat.  I scoop her up and climb back under the covers.  Chow Maine does a little kneading with her claws and settles in under the covers, purring.  I am just about to go to the land of “La-La” when she is out from under the covers, across the bed over to the desk.  She commences to clawing the paperwork that awaits my attention.

3:32 AM Grrrrrr, she is driving me crazy!  I get up and she immediately runs out of the bedroom.  I toss a sweatshirt on the floor in front of the door hoping to dissuade her from digging at it.  Tall Cool ☺ne snickers and says, “She is just going to yawl”.  I get settled back under the covers and start that deep breathing that comes just before sleep and …

3:55 AM Bow Wow, Wow, Wow; it is Foxtrot.  He has a deep southern drawl type bark that almost makes me think that he is saying, “I really don’t want to put too much effort into this barking thing but I feel like I should bark.”  He has the Sam Elliot of dog barks.

4:09 AM I lay there thinking, he won’t bark that long, he’s not real loud.  He will quiet down in a minute and he does and I’m back in that mode of falling asleep when suddenly his brother, Charlie starts:  Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, and ruff!  He has that high pitched beagle in a big dog bark that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  He has the Pee Wee Herman of dog barks.

4:28 AM I drag myself out of the bed and open the window and yell for the two meatheads to be quiet, not in such a nice tone either.  Charlie, the daring one, tests me and barks a couple more times.  This time I yell just at him.  Again I am back under the covers and I am wondering why bother because the alarm is going to go off very soon.  Sleep seems to come easy and just as I am sauntering off, plunk right in the center of my stomach.  Chow Maine is back… How the heck?

Sleep is one of those things that the value cannot be truly appreciated unless it is interrupted.  As I thought about that through the wee hours of sleeplessness, I am convicted by how many things that I cannot place a value on because I have not been without them.  Food, water, shelter, clothing; all things I take for granted every day;  simple things like being able to take a shower and wash my hair, a washer and dryer so that I can clean my clothes.  It is very simple for me to look at other people and see some of the things that they have and don’t need.  Isn’t that always the way?  It is so easy to pick out the faults of others but to see our own faults, well that is a different story:  Matthew 7:3 “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” 

I am going to think really hard about this during the holiday season.  There are so many people that don’t have the simple things that I take for granted every day. Maybe my deprivation from sleep was a wake up call.  What else is there that I can give up?

© Crackerberries 2011