Sleep on It

The other day, I was watching some mindless ABC television program documenting the lives of 'Sleep Eaters'. This parasomnia, or abnormal behavior, during sleep is a common occurrence among nearly a million Americans.

"We've had patients consume cat food sandwiches." an article relates, "They've put coffee grounds, Coca-Cola, and eggshells in a blender and consume it. They eat Elmer's Glue. They chew on chunks of frozen pizza and then try to swallow it. They're like sleeping zombies, just walking around headless. Except that they have a mouth to feed."

This is just awesome.

So here's my question:
Why in the mother of all sin can't I suffer from a parasomnia?

I will happily take any of the following:
1) Sleep exerciser
2) Sleep job searcher
3) Sleep chicken dancer

Let's face it.
That last one would be freakin' hilarious.

I can just see it now.

Actually, the parasomnia I'm really good at is turning off my alarm in my sleep.

Which is an increasingly alarming (excuse my pun) habit.

I'll awaken suddenly to Gem getting in the shower which, of course, means 'you have approximately 10 minutes before you should be ready and out the door'.

Commence cursing, sprinting, banging into walls, etc.

"How in the monkey did my alarm not go off AGAIN?!!", I'll wonder frantically.

Then I look down and see that I'm holding my phone.
Which means it did go off. And that I disabled the most annoying 'rooster crowing' alarm ever to have been invented by man at its highest volume...

in. my. sleep.

I should really get more than five hours of sleep per night...

That way, I'd be coherent enough to respond to my alarm and avoid intentionally vague emails from my ever-concerned mother warning against the 'evils of sin'. In this instance, sin equaling staying up late.

Well if the horns fit!

In other news, during my research on 'sleep eaters', I came across some very useful knowledge.

Apparently, though I may turn off alarms, I don't swallow spiders in my sleep.

"In order to swallow a spider in your sleep, a number of unlikely coincidences would all have to occur in sequence. You'd have to be sleeping with your mouth pretty wide open. If a spider crawled on your face and over your lips, you'd likely feel it, so a spider would have to approach you by descending from the ceiling above you on a silk thread. The spider would have to hit the target – your mouth - dead center to avoid tickling your lips. And if it landed on your tongue, a highly-sensitive surface, you would feel it for sure. So the spider would have to land at the back of your throat without touching anything on the way in. And then you'd have to swallow."

Now don't you feel better?