I worked on my current book all day (All Bets Are Off: Apocalyptic Women).

So — feeling cold to the bone and tired, I went to bed at some ridiculously early time–10:15, I think it was–and after giving Noodle her nightly lovies, where she flops against my chest and endures tummy teasels, I sent her to burrow under the Sherpa…

I reached over to the little shelving unit I use for a nightstand, to get the slouch hat I use as a sleeping cap to cover my eyes.

It was, as usual, in the little soft-side craft tote that I carry around in the house with me, because it keeps everything I need nearby, and I knocked the tote off to the floor between said little shelving unit and the wall.

Just one choice profanity, “Bullocks and whores!”

(Impressive. Not the profanity, but that there was only one).

I moved the little pillow I use to prop my kindle on my chest at just the right height, stood up, straddling the pool noodle that was sticking out like a flagpole, back under the edge of the mattress (because I sleep on a sofa foam mattress and it’s a little worn out, and the pool noodle is just the right thing to keep me from rolling off onto floor).

I removed the long-sleeved shirt I had on backwards (because it’s easier to remove from a horizontal position once I inevitably get overheated). I’m standing there in my lounge pants and leg warmers, peering into the dark corner by the bookshelf-nightstand. No way I can see to get everything that fell out of my tote. And I can’t reach it either. This was a job for Jack Reacher (my name for the little grabber device that is often a convenient extension of my arm), and, of course, my headlamp.

But the headlamp was–rightfully so–in the tote that had fallen on the floor between the little bookshelf night stand and the wall.

IRONY ALERT: I needed my headlamp to see well enough to retrieve the headlamp so I could then see to retrieve the other items that had fallen out of my tote. 

So, preparing to go to sleep, I turned out my reading lamp and pulled the sheet up in the dark.

“Why does the sheet feel like flannel?” I said to my almost-asleep wife.

She said, “Maybe your hands are just rough after playing in the clay all day.”

“No,” I said. “It really feels like flannel.”

I clicked on the reading light and saw that what I thought was the sheet, was actually my flannel shirt, which I had on earlier, turned backwards, so it was easier to pull off.

It felt like flannel, because–guess what–it was flannel.

(SIDEBAR: I really love my flannel shirts, but I wish I could find one that wasn’t plaid. They make me look like a lumberjack).

Anyway, we started laughing, and I turned to mimic her earlier suggestion. “Maybe my hands are just rough?” (Like a lumberjack?)

I grabbed the sheet-proper, and pulled it up, switched off the light.

We had a moment of silence and then we both started laughing.

The more we laughed, the more we laughed. It was coming close to screaming meemies for a minute.

That wasn’t the weirdest thing I’ve ever done in bed–(insert your own off-color comment here).

TANGENT ALERT. I remember once I went to bed in my jammies, and woke up the next morning on TOP of the made-bed, fully clothed in jeans,a dress shirt, and socks. Now, either I was sleepwalking (though my socks were clean, so that’s a good sign I stayed in my apartment) or, I was abducted by aliens.

Aliens who apparently know how to dress me, and didn’t pay attention to what I was wearing before. (How are they going to avoid all those rumors unless they pay attention to detail?)

Anyway. Back from the tangent. Melissa and I are lying there after the tote-flannel incident, with silence between us again, as I listened to the fan oscillating back and forth, and the gurgle of the pump in the aquarium, happily ensconced in my jersey sheets with a supportive pool noodle keeping me in place, just so thankful that I had remembered to take off my headlamp. (Not quite as absurd, maybe, as the times I’ve stepped into the shower with my glasses on).

Then I giggled.

And she giggled.

And there we were, laughing again.

In the dark.