Diaries I Read:
On Saturday night, after our evening of eating and drinking way too much, B and I crashed.
I was sleeping soundly when, all of a sudden, B bolted out of bed and sprinted out of the room.
It woke me up immediately, and I called his name but got no answer.
He ran down the hallway and into his office, where he (I heard it) crashed into his desk chair.
I called his name again but got no answer.
Needless to say, this freaked me out considerably. It all happened so fast and it was so bizarre.
Then he came walking back into the room, and I said, �What�s wrong?�
�Nothing,� he replied, groggily (is that a word?).
�Are you OK?� I asked.
�Yes,� he answered on his way to the bathroom.
When he came back to get into bed, I said cautiously, �Why did you go running down the hallway?�
�I thought there were things crawling on me,� he said.
�Oh,� I replied. �But everything�s OK, now, right?�
�Yes,� he sighed, and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I asked him, �Do you remember jumping out of bed and racing down the hallway last night?�
�Yeah,� he said.
�What was that all about?�
�I thought there were rats crawling on me,� he said.
�Ohhhhh. The rats again,� I answered.
�Yeah,� he said. �They were crawling on me from under the sheets.�
I see. So he left me there to deal with the rats on my own. Nice, that husband of mine. Real nice.
XXX
To explain a bit.
B has a rat phobia.
I think it stems from his college years when he lived in an old, run-down house with his buddies, and he used to wake up in the middle of the night feeling like something had run across his bed.
When he moved out in the spring, he went to move his dresser and discovered a rats� nest behind it. So, looking back, he believes that rats used to run across his bed at night. Shiver.
He also has a history of sleepwalking, although this weekend�s escapade is really the first incident (of sleeprunning, to be more exact) that I�ve witnessed.
Unless you count our honeymoon.
On one of our first nights in Maui on our honeymoon, B jumped out of bed with his hands over his head, kind of cringing and hopping around. When I got him calmed down, he got back in bed and I asked him what he�d been doing. �I thought the ceiling was caving in,� he replied.
Then a couple of nights later, still in Maui, he sat up straight in the middle of the night and started slapping at the mattress, on top of the sheets and blankets. �B, what are you doing?� I asked.
�Huh?� he said, apparently just jolted out of sleep.
�Why are you hitting the bed?� I said.
�I thought there were rats in the bed,� he replied.
And every now and then � I�d say at least once a month � when he�s fallen asleep and I�m still awake watching TV, he�ll sit up in bed and lean over the side, seemingly looking for something on the floor.
Sometimes I just ignore him, and after a minute or so he lies back down and goes to sleep.
Sometimes I say to him, �There�s nothing there, B, just go to sleep.�
And sometimes I ask, �What are you looking for?�
He says �nothing� and goes to sleep.
But I know he�s looking for rats.
Hee.
Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004
Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004