Authors: Karen Slavick-Lennard
1. It was stressful. You try taking dictation at top speed in the dead of night!
2. As surreptitiously as I tried to type, Adam would start incorporating the sounds of the typing into his dreams (clip-clop of horses, applause, rain). This was amusing, but always ultimately resulted in him waking up.
3. I was reluctant to go to sleep AT ALL, in case I missed anything.
Once I took note of that last one, I knew something had to change. And that’s how I ended up with my trusty little Olympus. Now I press the red button every night before we go to sleep, and snuggle down for as a good a night sleep as my chronic insomnia will allow. I still hear everything STM comes out with first hand, because Adam’s sleep talking invariably wakes me, but now I can just lay back, stress-free, and giggle into my pillow.
For the geeks out there—or otherwise interested folks—here’s how it works. First of all, the recorder is sound-activated. So I’m not faced with eight hours of oblivion to go through every morning. I end up with somewhere between thirty to sixty minutes. Of course, most of that is not sleep talking; it’s Adam and me having a final chat, the heater kicking on, Molly snoring loudly, the subtle creak of the bed every time one of us turns over, and a host of other nighttime noises. I certainly don’t have the time or patience to sit and listen through all that once a day. Instead, I LOOK through the recording. I open the mp3 file in music editing software, and
look through the waves to find the sleep talking. After three years of doing this, I can identify with barely a glance the pattern of a throat clear, a snore, a sigh, a truck rumbling past…. So, amongst all of that, I find the actual sleep-talking quotes and create separate little audio clips of each. At the moment that I’m writing this, I’ve got 1,735 of them.
Having a recorder going from bedtime until morning every night has a further benefit, one that has nothing to do with Adam’s sleep talking: it captures many lovely little moments in our relationship. I’m a hoarder of sentimental crap of all sorts, and my inability to delete audio files of our late-night and early-morning conversations is no different. In fact, I even have a recording of a conversation of us talking about me having recordings of our conversations!
| KAREN: | You know what’s nice? If you die, I’ll have all these recordings of us talking. : |
| ADAM : | What? No! “Do you know what would be nice? If you die …”: |
| KAREN: | No, that’s not the part that’s nice— : |
| ADAM : | Imagine if your tape recorder shut off right then.: |
| KAREN: | Let me try it differently: If you die, you know what would be … nice? Even though that’s horrible, that you’re dead, what would be nice apart from that? That I’d have all these recordings of us talking. : |
| ADAM : | Listen: “I just thought of something really wonderful, which is no matter what happens to you, I’ll always have recordings of us talking.”: |
| KAREN: | Yeah, that’s a better job. : |
| ADAM : | “You know what would be nice? If you die …” You wake me up, to tell me it would be nice if I died.: |
| KAREN: | But you know what will be really ironic, is listening to this conversation then. : |
| ADAM : | You’ll be like, “Yeah, this really IS nice!”: |
Good morning.
I just wanted to be the first person to call you a twat. Enjoy your day.
Oooh. You know what would be good? Ass bags. Big bags full of ass.
You know, you’re not some precious flower. And if you were I’d be a weed and grow next to you and CHOKE YOU TO FUCKING DEATH! … Love you.
Don’t worry. I’ll find it. That’s what I do, find things. I find you annoying. See?
Fuck! If I don’t get to the motherfucking flower show, I’m gonna fucking kill someone!
You’re so vain, you probably think even the mannequins are checking you out.
Idiot.
Don’t worry. If you kick one bunny, then all the rest will scatter.
Hurray for me! Yup, I said it. Now the rest of you can join in.
Oh, there are some noises that really bug the shit out of me. Your talking … and your breathing.
Why don’t you call back later, and we’ll see whether we can get the world to revolve around you.
Of course the zombie loved me. She gave me her heart. Mmmmm-hmmm. And her hand in marriage.
Great. So you’ve fallen in love again. Go wash yourself off. Dirty stuff.
Skipping to work makes everything better.
Yes, I can get away with wearing leather chaps. Just not on a windy day.
It’s time to don our cow masks and scare the salad out of her. I love Veggieween.
Even your reflection thinks you’re a pathetic piece of scum. Now leave me be. I’ve got some breathing to do.
My pony’s for sale….
Yes, it fucking works!
I wanna get a stripey zebra instead.
I’m gonna puke in your pants. I’m gonna be the knicker puker. Yeah.
You know, with you you you, it’s all me me me. Well fuck fuck fuck fuck you you you.
Can you hold my starfish? It doesn’t like it when I’m getting excited. Oh look, it likes you! Its legs are all creepy creepy.
I can’t control the kittens.
Too many whiskers!
Too many whiskers!
Hands up who wants sweets!
Hands up! Awwwwww, you’ve got no hands.
Sucks to be you, sweets for me.
Pygmy goat herding sucks. I’ve got this fucking teacup pig for a ride, and they just all laugh at me. Fucking mini-bearded bitches.
With just a little perspective, you will agree that you’re a festered limp fucking dick. Shrivel up my friend, shrivel up.
I’m gonna have a great day …
Don’t you fuck it up.
I have succumbed to temptation! Mankini or body wax? Decisions, decisions …
I’ve got something for you. It’s a future. And you can have it when you leave.
Oh, I hope you take this advice to heart: you look fat when you cry.
It’s taken me years to get things just fucking right, and one monkey comes along and ruins everything!
Stupid monkey! Grrrr.
This little tampon went out, this little tampon stayed home. This little tampon had an applicator, this little tampon had none. This little tampon’s covered in … poop. WRONG HOLE, PEOPLE! Wrong hole.
Yeah, keep laughing. Laugh your fucking face off, you giggling little freak.
“It’s definitely time to get up.
Yes. My dog needs a new tutu.”
Adam’s bouts of sleep talking often culminate in a spontaneous awakening. Sometimes those awakenings are mild but odd, with a sudden intake of breath and an immediate declaration of some tidbit of information that, considering that he has just emerged from sleep, turns out to be surprisingly relevant to the day; more often, his awakenings are dramatic affairs: a exclamation yelled into the silence or a fist to the headboard. In either case, Adam is instantly alert.
Since he often wakes up to find me giggling next to him, Adam gets just as excited to hear what he has said in his sleep as I am to tell him. Our ensuing conversations—dubbed “reveals” by me—can get pretty wacky. Luckily for me, the recorder is generally still going, allowing me to
chuckle over them later.
Sometimes Awake Adam carries on with STM’s flight of fancy. For example:
“Don’t let the midget out of the wardrobe. No! He doesn’t come out until Thursday … Not until Thursday.”
| ME: | You said, “Don’t let the midget out of the wardrobe. He doesn’t come out until Thursday.” : |
| ADAM : | He’s got to polish all my shoes. Cleans my shoes, straightens my shirts, and guards against moths. Thursday is his day off.: |
| ME: | Are moths afraid of midgets? : |
| ADAM : | He eats the moths.: |
| ME: | Oh. Does he get to eat anything else? : |
| ADAM : | Moths and dust.: |
| ME: | Dust is mostly human skin cells. : |
| ADAM : | He eats dust.: |
| ME: | So, you’re saying he’s a cannibal. Aren’t you afraid of keeping a cannibal around the house? : |
| ADAM: | No, I don’t keep him around the house. I keep him in the wardrobe.: |
| ME: | Where does he go on Thursday? : |
| ADAM: | I let him out so he can stretch his legs. It doesn’t take much. He likes to skateboard.: |
| ME: | Does he? : |
| ADAM : | Apparently so. I see him going up and down the hill. Then at six o’clock in the evening on the dot, he bounces back into the wardrobe. He likes it there. It’s cozy. He’s made a little nest in my T-shirts.: |
| ME: | No wonder your T-shirts smell like that. : |
| ADAM : | (calling out toward the closet): I love you, midget!: Next year I’ll give you a name. |
Other times, STM’s utterances inspire Adam and me to examine life’s important questions:
“Jesus nipples on ice! I am NOT going shopping for hamster wigs!”
| ME: | Are hamster wigs wigs for hamsters, or wigs for people made out of hamster fur? : |
| ADAM : | Ooh, that’s a good question. Well, if it was the latter, how many hamsters would have to be used?: |
| ME: | Well, is it a toupee, or is it a long-hair wig? : |
| ADAM : | It’s a patch job.: |
| ME: | Then maybe you’ll need, like, six hamsters. : |
| ADAM : | I reckon it sounds like I’m shopping for my hamster. My hamster needs a wig.: |
| ME: | Is it for Halloween? : |
| ADAM : | I was actually thinking it was for his self-esteem.: |
| ME: | Awwww. : |
| ADAM : | Little baldy hamster.: |
| ME: | Why does he have low self-esteem? : |
| ADAM : | He’s bald!: |
| ME: | Ok, now, a hamster wig, is it just for the hamster’s head, or is it the whole body? : |
| ADAM : | I don’t know. I’m just imagining this tiny little hamster with an ill-fitting, wrong-colored little head wig. But he’s happy. |
After this conversation, we Googled “hamster wig” and, amazingly, came across a picture exactly as Adam had described. Some people just have too much time on their hands (… says the woman who spends her free time transcribing recordings of her husband talking in his sleep).
Hold me.
I want you to feel greatness.
I’m sorry, but, you can take your can-do attitude and fuck it ‘till it’s raw. Can you do that? Can you?
Oh! It’s a poltergoat. A poltergoat!
You can’t see ‘em, but you find all your clothes chewed. If you listen carefully, you may hear a ghostly baaaahhhhh.
Poltergoat! Baaaahhhhh.
You must be a cunt. Or a lawyer. Yeah, a lawyer.
CAKE-A-DOODLE-DOOoo!
It’s cake for breakfast!
She’s knitting me a jumper.
Fuck! I don’t want to be a social outcast.
Oh, not good.
Ghosts going bump in the night.
Clumsy fuckers.
Lead me not to the telephone, but deliver me some e-mail.
I’m like a vulnerable fawn in the woods. One that happens to carry an uzi, some ninja throwing stars, and a motherfucking bazooka.
I’m totally too bad-ass for tango.
Cha cha cha!
The carrots are winning! Damn those parsnips and their stupid infighting.
They’ve got so much to learn. Bring on the swede. Ooooh, that’ll show ‘em.
Oh, don’t worry, dear. The spot doesn’t make you ugly. No no no. The rest of your face, now THAT makes you ugly.
The spot’s just a highlight.
Ha ha ha. Who’s crying now? No, not you, you’ve got no tear ducts, you tearless freak!