remote lust

Last night we had dinner with my best friend from nursing school (the first person I met on the first day I attended class) and a friend of hers.  A nice couple, good dinner, laughs, camaraderie, just everything you want on a night before Christmas.  The way this time should be spent really, with friends and making connections, sharing the love and laughter. 

Then we got home and the rest of the night took a twist.  Two things I learned last night:

1. Never eat Mexican food after 7PM when you plan to go to bed early.
2. Ask for the small Margarita.

I had indigestion from hell last night.  I was in bed early so that I could get up early and get the food together I planned to take to the Christmas party at work today.  I was up early all right.  The first time was a wrong number.  On my cell phone!  And the person called not once but twice.  Let me explain that in my current job I take back up call 24/7.  I don't get that many calls, so I know when I get one it is serious.  I left my cell phone in the living room, only not in the usual spot.  I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't see it.  Actually I couldn't have seen it anyway because the lights were out in the living room.  So I go over and pick up the house phone, because I always tell everyone if they can't get me on the cell to call the house phone.  So there I am at 10:47 PM, standing blindly in the middle of the living room, with the house phone in my hand.

Then the cell phone rings again.  I look at the phone in my hand like it has betrayed me, then start looking for the light.  The cell phone light, and finally spot it on the box of Pillow Pets I have ordered that I haven't had time to wrap.  I grab it and answer it.  And someone hollers at me on the other end "HEY GIRL HOW YOU DOIN?"  and I holler back "WHAT?"  and she repeats herself, louder.  I holler back "WHO IS THIS?" ....dead air....then she says "I'M SOWWY I HAVE THE WONG NUMBOO" and hangs up...

By then I am totally awake and have a headache from hell.   Should never have had the Margarita that late...I go take some ibuprofen and head back to bed.  Steve, being the conscientious husband he is, is awake and I explain to him what has happened.  I also have my cell and house phones by the bed so I won't have to run in circles like a dog sniffing for a bone if someone calls again.  The phones are silent the rest of the night.

I get up at 1AM to turn the heat down because it is that time of night, the time I wake up in a sweat, hormones or no hormones.  Realizing we have run out of gas at some point and the electric furnace is running our bill up every second by another dollar, I wake up Steve to share the news.  He panics and runs in to the gas heater and I hear several loud clicks, then he comes back into the bedroom and collapses into bed.

me: "are we out of gas?"
him: "yes"
me: "I thought so"
him: "but the tank said 15% the other day"
me: "the tank lied"
him: "yah"

I get up again at 2AM.  The pinched nerve in my neck is killing me (what was in that Margarita?) and so I look at the clock, figure I can get maybe two more hours of good sleep if I take some of the medicine the doctor had given me for this.  The nurse in me calculates scientifically (using the algebra they told us we had to know in nursing school to calculate drug dosages), and I pinch off a corner of a half a pill, take it, and then lick the pill dust off my fingers for good measure.  Very precise and scientifically.  I lay out the cream cheese to soften, figuring that by 5AM it will be about right, and head back to bed.

And somewhere in between one of those trips up and down, I had a romantic interlude with the remote.  I was moving around trying to get more comfortable and shoved my knee against something hard.  I nudged again, yep it was something hard.  Interested by now, I reached out a hand to feel it.  I kept running into cover, but there it was, poking me back.  I finally leaned hard into it.... 

The TV turns on.  In the glow from the screen I see Steve has his back to me.  I pull my hand out from under the cover and feel on top of it and find it.

The remote.  I was lusting after the remote.  In disgust I turn the TV off and go back to sleep for another fifteen minutes.  I don't wake up Steve. 

There are some things he just doesn't need to know.