Daytime habits that affect your sleep at night

Trena Eiden, local commentary
Posted 3/25/21

Local commentary from Trena Eiden.

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Daytime habits that affect your sleep at night

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I recently did a good deed and picked up my friend’s mail for her. In the bundle was an advertisement stating, “Three surprising daytime habits that affect your sleep at night.” I glanced at the brochure as I tossed it into the bin with the rest of the letters. I didn’t read it because, first, it wasn’t my mail I was scrutinizing peeping-tom style, and second, I already knew things that would affect anyone’s sleep.

For instance, say you did cocaine. I’m not pointing fingers or singling anyone out so keep calm. I’m merely suggesting that snorting something might, all by itself, keep you from snoozing. I wouldn’t know this for a fact since I’ve never done drugs, unless that feel-good euphoria I get from Hershey’s dark chocolate counts. So, let’s say you do imbibe in substances not regularly passed around the supper table, and you got them from someone without paying, and that person has come looking for you. It’s hard to imagine anybody making you a pricey deal without you first handing over a wad of cash, but let’s say you hadn’t paid, and worse, didn’t have the means to pay, but knew you were being sought after. I’m pretty sure that would keep you from sleeping. It would also keep you from eating. In and of itself, this wouldn’t be too terrible for any of us short-term. I’ve told you, like you didn’t already know, collectively, we’re chubby. And now you know we’re all doing cocaine. Thankfully, in most states we can still get straws, nix the West Coast, so obviously nobody out there does drugs. Little joke.

We could raise it up a notch and say you owe somebody money who is named Tony. Tony pronounces his name in a Jersey accent with his tongue under his front teeth, “Toe-knee.” Nobody would argue with him about how he sounds like a dork, because his neck is bigger than your thigh and his chest, wider than a boat. He chews gum and a toothpick at the same time and he likes his job. It entails plucking out your eyelashes and/or fingernails, one at a time with pliers, and if that doesn’t get your attention he calmly and without much fanfare breaks both your elbows. He could do worse but nobody knows what because they pay, or they disappear; he’s not an option kind of guy. He’d be the reason a few people don’t sleep at night, or ever.

I also believe it would be difficult to sleep if you were on vacation, and three hours from your house, as you’re driving down the road and beginning to relax that knot out of your gut, a question punched you in the side of the head: Did you turn off the stove, iron, glue gun, curling wand, printer, garden hose, coffee maker or Christmas tree lights? Those questions would have you up all night, unless you’ve left a house key with the neighbor. You’d pull over and call neighbor Bob to ask if he’d do you a favor? Bob would scratch his head, wondering how needy one guy could be, since this was the first day and the whiner just left this morning. If you call more than once, Bob might not sleep much better than you due to wondering what other dumb things you’re going to ask and also, were you too dumb to make a list? How dumb is dumb anyway? A friend once told me, “I’m not a complete dumb-dumb but there’s different ways to be dumb and I’m some of those.” Ya, that pretty much sums up all of us.

There are many things that keep a grandma from sleeping and I’ll give you one little instance. I was sitting with our then, 8-year-old granddaughter, Mads, on her Florida deck when a female lizard came by. Noticing that she quickly hid from the male behind a pillar, Mads said, “Maybe she doesn’t want him around because kids are a handful.” I laughed, until she went on, “You know Gram, I grew in mom’s womb. I’m not sure how I got there but I know mom had this little egg and somehow dad’s DNA got into the egg and now I have dad’s eyes and mom’s hair.” My heart skipped a beat and I, without hesitation, exclaimed, “Wow, would you look at the time, we gotta go!” I was not adequately prepared to go into DNA and also, without a doubt, I need my beauty sleep.