Mary and Daphne #186

When you wake up at night, but not really cuz you’re just barely conscious and don’t even remember it, does that count as still being asleep? If so, I’m misbehaving in my sleep now according to some people who don’t handle being concerned about their loved ones very well and go on offense to cover it and are called Mary.

She’s sweet though, which is why she stripped the bed even though the laundry is my chore. Most small chores are my chores ever since my coronation as a stay-at-home queen, though sometimes I give into the temptation to not do my chores to see how the rest of the royal household will react to my laziness (is it laziness if it's deliberate?). But Mary was just being nice when she stripped the bed cuz I was groggy when I woke up and for the next three hours.

Yep, took me three hours that morning to go from awake to doing anything: one hour to get out of bed; twenty minutes to eat breakfast; one hundred minutes to stare into the middle distance and try to conjure a cogent thought or the will to get off the couch and dressed. And in came Mary, holding up the fitted sheet from our bed.

“Daffy,” Mary – who was talking way too early to be talking (10am) – talked at me. “Do you know what this stain on our sheets is?”

“Shhhh. We’re not talking yet.” And I wasn’t even hungover. I was just super tired from not sleeping well twelve nights in a row.

Mary sat down on the coffee table right in front of me and looked at me like she sometimes does when I eat too much sugar, i.e., she was checking my eyes. According to Mary, she can always tell how I’m feeling from my eyes, and according to me, that is one of the most mom-like things she’s ever said to me. Why, you ask? Well, if you’re patient I shall tell you. Because my very own mother said that to me many times growing up, usually in the context of me fibbing (telling bald-faced lies) about not feeling well enough to attend local institutions of education.

Mary frowned a little, and while I was distracted by the effort of keeping myself upright, she reached out without my noticing and squeeze-tickled my side. I’m usually much better at the noticing when she’s committing such effrontery and the reflexes and the (attempted) interdiction of her busy hands, but she snuck it through and made me go, “Yipe! What was that for?!?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just slee-yawwwwn-py.”

“So speaking of things we do in bed,” she said, and that’s a phrase that’s bound to catch my ear, “what is this? Because it looks like …”

“Chocolate.”

“How did this much chocolate get on our sheets? Did you fall asleep on a a Hershey bar,” she said with her signature chortle. Almost like she was saying ‘cuz that would be ridiculous; not even Daffy the Silliest Goose could manage to do that.’

But yes, I can, and yes, I did. When you’re eating chocolate in bed in the one-eighth conscious state described above, well … “I must’ve fallen back asleep and rolled over on it.”

There’s a super easy way of knowing for sure if that’s what happened, and Mary, clever as she is, deduced it straight away. “Stand up for a sec.” She turned me left, turned me right, turned me around, checked my pajama bottoms and yep, a matching chocolate stain. “When did you eat chocolate in bed last night?”

“I dunno. Too late to be early but too early to be late.” I plopped back onto the sofa, and Mary, who was being kinda bossy if I’m telling the truth which is what I always tell because someone has to (do I gotta do everything for everyone? You’re welcome) took hold of my upper arm and pulled me back onto my feet.

“Well, don’t get it on the couch, silly goose.”

“I’m not a silly g-yawwwwn-oose.” She just took my pajama pants off me with one hand is what she did. She’s very good at that; almost like she’s had an abnormal amount of practice taking my pants off with one hand while her other hand … does stuff. She was being so bossy she didn’t even let me sit back down. She just dropped the sheet and my pajama bottoms and took me upstairs to our bedroom. It’s gotta be one of my all-time favorite places.

She took me straight to my nightstand, on top of which a one or three wrappers from some consumer packaged goods confections had yet to be thrown away.

“I’ve been waking up a bunch of times at night. It makes it easier to go back to sleep.”

Hmm. Mary’s there-Daffy-goes-with-her-nonsense-again face. I honestly have no idea what she means by the nonsense or again with that face. I’ve made nothing but sense since I’ve known her and then some. Just because I leave out a lot of details that would help her understand doesn’t make what I say and do nonsense. True story. And if anyone, including me, ever says I say any nonsense, then you just look them in the eye and kindly but firmly tell them that’s some nonsense they’re spouting (especially if it’s me).

“Remember last week I was getting up a lot,” I reminded her.

“Yeah.”

“I was really hungry, and then I couldn’t fall back asleep so I put some candy in the drawer so I could eat something without getting up.” I’ve been getting back to sleep easier, a little too easy if I fell asleep on a chocolate bar, but I wasn’t any better rested. Mary took a deep breath and let it out while eyeing me with her I’m-considering-something eyes.

“By ‘really hungry,’ do you mean your blood sugar has been getting low at night again?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Sit.”

“W…”

“Sit, little girl.”

“How am I trouble?” My emotions were being pulled in so many directions. One the one hand, I love being on the bed. On the other, what did I do (other than fall asleep on a piece of a Dove bar)? So count those directions I was being pulled in: one, two … two directions! That’s a lot for me; I’m only five-foot-two.

Mary walked to the bathroom and came back with the thermometer. “Hold real still,” she said in a very sweet voice. It’s the kind you can press against a forehead, but she always puts it in my ear. I can’t complain cuz sometimes she uses the other kind and seems to take some sort of pleasure in putting it right in my butt. How weird is that? She’s weird. I only squirm when she does that because there’s something in my butt and she’s usually teasing me and sometimes smacking my cheeks and flicking the thermometer and cuz I kinda like it.

But that thermometer is for playtime. The thermometer she just put in my ear is for healthcare. “You don’t have a fever.”

“I know that.” Totally ignored me. Looked at my eyes again. Pressed on the lymph nodes in my neck (both sides, kinda hard, hurt a little).

“Do you have a headache?”

“No.”

“Cough?”

“No.”

“Ears hurt?”

“No.”

“Sneezing? Itchy or watery eyes? Upset stomach?”

“You sound like the disclaimer at the end of a medicine commercial.”

“Are you getting a flare up?” Super good question that I’d also been wondering.

“Nothing hurts. Other than being tired and hungry at night, I think I’m fine.”

“Daphne,” Mary said with her I’m-so-serious-you-don’t-even-wanna-know-how-serious-I-am face, “should we call Dr. Murray?”

“Mary, you’re being a worry wort.”

I don’t know what happened (and I was there), but one half-a-second I was sitting upright and the next half-a-second I was sitting upright but my left butt cheek hurt, like, a lot. I made my what-just-happened-and-how-is-she-a-ninja-and-a-sorceress-all-at-once face with the darting eyes and furrowed brow I often exhibit when trying to figure out what my ninja-sorceress wife just did to me.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“No … And ouch.” Even if I was getting flare up, my immunologist couldn’t do anything about it. I’m already on daily meds and have the ones I need to cope with a flare up. If Dr. Murray could do anything more, she’d have done it all the times before.

“It’s my job to worry.” She sat down next to me, put her arm around my shoulder, and leaned her head against mine. “Are you eating enough,” she asked me.

“That is such a sapphic thing to say,” I tried to very gently joke. I got nary a titter so I answered the question. “I think so. Not exactly one of my problems.” I eat enough for someone 1.3 times my size; a lot of people have just come right out and told me how much they hate me a little cuz I can eat a small cake all on my own but only gain about three pounds a decade.

“Are you eating enough real food, I mean? Protein and fiber.”

“I think so. Maybe it’s because I’ve been outside a lot lately. Not eating enough for all the walking I’m doing with Suzy, maybe.”

She kissed my temple. “Your bedtime snack is a protein bar until you’re not waking up hungry at night anymore, and if you do wake up hungry, you’re eating a protein bar, not candy.”

“Okay … Mary, are you alright? You’ve been weird the last few days.”

“I’m fine. I just worry about you. You’ve been so tired for the last two weeks. I don’t like it when you don’t feel well.” I don’t like it when I don’t feel well either; I love that we we have so much in common. “Stand up.”

“Why? What are you gonna do to me?”

“I’m gonna make the bed while you sit in the chair and look pretty.”

“I don’t look pretty this morning.” But I sat in the chair anyway, and Mary made the bed and didn’t even need two tries to figure out which was the long end of the fitted sheet. I’m getting better at it, but I still sometimes need two (or five) tries. She started putting the pillowcases on the pillows and shot me a back-on-your-butt dirty look that had me sitting back on my butt instead of helping her.

“On the bed,” she ordered me in that way she has of being bossy and nice at the same time. She’s very talented, and I’m so very susceptible to her talents it’s almost like I’m submissive to her or something weird like that. She walked right past me into the closet and emerged with two diapers. She was being so nice to me she didn’t even scold me for rolling my eyes or kicking my heel against the bed. “Such a handful,” she chided me instead. “You know the rules: when you don’t feel well, you wear a diaper. Which one do you want?”

I only chose the cloth one cuz I hadn’t worn one of those in forever, and I hoped it would be a little more breathable around my hips than the disposable one. I have way too much pride to ever point this out to Mary, but it’s summertime and the only other diapers she has right now are the plastic kind. I get clammy around my butt and hips. But I’ll sweat until I shrivel before asking her to buy the cloth-like kind; she’ll surely (willfully) misinterpret that request as an admission I enjoy wearing diapers. It would take months of protest and disobedience just get back to the status quo.

“Where’s your phone,” Mary asked.

“I left it in the living room.”

“Good.” She opened my the drawer of my nightstand and took out my small stash of candy. “I’m putting it in the freezer, before you start pouting.”

“That’s ridiculous, Mary. I’ve never pouted over candy or anything else. Really.” And she didn’t even roll her eyes at me! Geez, when she’s serious it’s, like, such a serious thing.

“Here,” she said and handed me my sleep mask. I used to keep it with our travel things for long flights, and then pandemic and I started wearing it for naps instead.

“I’m taking a nap?”

She answered, “Yes. A long one,” while pulling our comforter over me. “You’re going to stay in this bed until I come get you. I’m going to come check on you in half an hour, and if you’re still awake, you’re taking a Tylenol PM.”

I, uh, get goofy on Tylenol PM. I also get goofy on pretty much all the medicines ending in PM or starting with Ny. But I sleep well on it (and have the weirdest, most vivid dreams; kinda fun, but very groggy when I wake up).

“But we have things to do today,” I said and propped myself up on my elbow.

“Yes,” she said and unpropped me up. “You have to get some sleep. I have to make sure you get some sleep. And when you wake up, I’m going turn you over my knee and spank your bare bottom with that paddle on your nightstand.”

“What? What’d I do?”

“Two weeks, Daffy. Two weeks, and you didn’t tell me your blood sugar was getting low and you were losing sleep because of it. You tell me when you don’t feel well, little girl.”

“But …”

“Yeah, your butt over my knee getting spanked with your paddle until you cry, and then I’ll give you a bath and wash your pretty face and hair. I bet you could use a good cry.”

“Well, yeah, probably.” I mean, I almost always could.

And then she kissed me on my temple again. “Sleep well.” She got up and started toward the door.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to make you worry for no reason”

“You’re the reason.”

“I know … Sorry.”

“We’ll take care of sorry after your nap. You want the fan on?”

“Yes, please.”

“Put your mask on and get to sleep.”

She’s so heccin nice to me sometimes that it hurts (especially on my butt). But seriously, the woman heccin loves me, and I love her back just as much. Sleepy, wistful sighs …