My future father-in-law asked me if I was prepared to marry a possum.
“Most nights he’s working, reading and rummaging for food. He has stayed up late since he was born. By late, I mean he revs up at suppertime and crawls into bed when the other nocturnal animals head for their dens. You can’t change him. We tried. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Love,” I thought, “conquers all.”
Like most women, I was sure nighties with décolletage would resolve his problem. That strategy worked for on nights.
Off nights, he stayed up late.
And yes, when I say late, I mean to between 2 and 5 in the morning, by which I mean night.
No wonder, at an hour when crooks head home to bed, he was able to investigate strange shuffling and snarfing on the back porch. What else? A possum that had wedged itself through the pet door to eat the cats’ kibble. Takes one to know one.
Like most people, I think the fact that it’s dark outside indicates bedtime. This is nature’s formula: Dark x Fatigue = Sleep. Unless, of course, you’re coming off the late shift or getting up to make coffee for early bird commuters.
What gets me is that all that nightly eating — popcorn, ice cream, cereal, whatever — doesn’t affect him. The man’s weight hardly changes. I drink clear soup for a late supper, and the next day the scales register an extra 5 pounds.
“Why,” I asked, “do you stay up so late?”
“I do some of my best thinking then,” he said.
At first I tried to match my hours to his.
Bad idea. Diet Dr Pepper is a poor substitute for a good night’s sleep.
About 3 p.m., when newspapers push toward deadlines, I’d head for the soda machine.
My boss gave me permission to crawl under my desk for a 10-minute power nap.
Have you ever wiggled under a desk in a big room with telephones ringing, keyboards clacking, people shouting — and tried to power down?
For me, impossible.
And weird, which is why colleagues kept asking if I was OK. Wouldn’t you, if you saw a co-worker lying on the floor with her legs sticking out of her work station?
I tried office power napping only once.
“Don’t blame me for your lack of sleep,” argued O’Possum. “Go to bed when you want to.”
“Fine,” I said. “Be like that.”
Fast-forward nearly 19 years.
So now I turn out the light at 11, my normal premarital bedtime, and fall into the arms of Morpheus. Why not? He is there and my husband is downstairs.
Just when I reach deep sleep, the stairs squawk as O’P sneaks up “quietly.”
I cherish those squeaking steps, which remind me of the creaking floors Chinese emperors devised as interior burglar alarms. What worked for them works for me.
By 4 a.m., say, when the stairs or the toothbrush is squeaking or buzzing, my circadian rhythm is cycling toward wakefulness, especially these spring days. Boing! I’m wide-eyed, true to my 5:07 a.m. hour of birth. Sleep often doesn’t return unless I go to the guest room and read for a while.
I do some of my best thinking then.
Various remedies for this marital divergence have been suggested by doctors, friends, siblings, co-workers, strangers — and probably some of you who have resolved your own nagging little spousal idiosyncrasies.
“Earplugs.”
And not hear potential danger, like the time the paper boy lobbed the morning edition through the front door side light?
“Separate beds.”
It would have to be bedrooms. And only on off nights.
“Drugs.”
Same problem as earplugs, plus probably others.
“Kwitchyerbellyakin.”
Now that works for me. I’m happy.
O’P was born 19 months before and 30 minutes earlier than I was.
Who knew such a little critter would register that as bedtime?
Contact Betty Booker, a retired Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter and columnist, at
