When the husband is up working late and I can’t fall asleep, I do my very best to drive him batty.

I force him to watch LOST with me and then I make comments right before things and people are about to happen and show up. “Charlie and Desmond in the water! Oh my god,it’s like when his hand said NOT PENNY’S BOAT. Desmond is going to remember this!” and “Widmore’s wife is going to be Eloise Hawking!” and “Farady is the dude sitting at the piano!” and “He’s totally going to say that he thinks he already SET OFF A BOMB omg!” and he will tell you that it didn’t annoy him but it totally did and really it was just to get him back for ruining BOTH The Sixth Sense (“He’s totally dead”) and Fight Club (“They are the same person”) 5 minutes into each movie and I’m still holding a bit of a grudge there.

And then I start telling him stories about how my family used to summer in Door County in cottages at The Alpine Resort that were named after different states. And then I list them…Arizona. Illinois. Minnesota. And then I get into my memories about dancing to Debarge’s Rhythm of the Night with my sister. And then he’s all…hold up…Rhythm of the Night is by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine.

And then for 45 minutes I am googling Debarge and forcing the husband to listen to youtube videos of them singing Rhythm of the Night. And he still holds by his opinion that it’s not Debarge and then he’s all, WAIT! Debarge is not a woman? and Debarge is black? And then he shoots me the “oh my god, woman! Either blow me or go to sleep, I have work to do” look. He has perfected this look. But, of course, because I enjoy driving him mad I then tell him about the nightmare I had while in Milwaukee that forced me awake in a cold sweat. Some sort of natural disaster had hit downtown Toronto and then I had to walk home from downtown and I wasn’t wearing shoes and then I ran into someone I went to high school with and she was walking home too and then I called my mother-in-law to see if she’d come and pick me up but she was on hold with the Toronto Symphony trying to get primo tickets or something

(“Now, this is how I know you are dreaming, love. You CALLED my mother.”)

(“Shut up and let me continue.”)

and then I hid underneath my old Jeep Grand Cherokee at Finch station while a building beside me collapsed and there was rubble flying everywhere.

And then we argue about what the women in Wilson Phillips’ names were and how they are related to the Beach Boys and The Mamas and the Papas and when I say “we” I really mean “I” because he totally stopped listening to me and was just nodding his head and sighing because, you know, there’s probably not anything he is interested in happening any time soon, especially because Emily is sleeping in our room and then I do the ultimate…turn on DEGRASSI, but, you know, it was an episode that I really wanted to watch (hello! It was PROM)

And then I get out of bed and take all the blankets and sheets off the bed because the OCD in me needs them to be a certain way or else I cannot sleep at all.

And then I turn over and as I’m falling asleep already asleep I turn to him and say,

“Why did you change the channel, Jackass?”

“Um, because you are sleeping, Love of my Life?”

“But I don’t want to watch Food TV while I’m sleeping! I want to watch Parenthood.”

“You really are a prize. A PRIZE.”

I really am.