ago. I’m a swimming-pool contractor. Maybe you’ve heard of me. Starling Pools, Inc. I work the Las Vegas/Clark County area—mostly residential, but I’ve done some big jobs for the hotels as well. I like my work . Nonetheless, as with any occupation, there’s stress. Goes with the territory. So when I began having trouble sleeping, I figured that’s what it was. Stress.
I was wrong.
Missing a little sleep doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, at first it wasn’t. I’ve always been able to get at least seven or eight hours of shuteye every night. It was something I took for granted—like the sun coming up in the morning or subcontractors trying to screw me —so when I unexpectedly found that all I could manage was two or three hours a night , I told myself it was temporary. Stress-related. Whatever.
I cut down on coffee. Then I stop ped drinking caffeine entirely. At night I tried w arm milk, sleeping pills, exercise, hot baths, pot, even reading Scientific American . Things got worse. Soon it wasn’t just a little sleep I was missing. It was all of it.
In time I didn’t even bother going to bed. Instead I stayed up watching late-night TV, hoping I would get bored enough to nod off for a few hours on the couch. We have a big ranch-style home ( patio and pool out back, of course) just off Washington Street, and the TV in the den was far enough from our bedroom that I didn’t have to worry about disturbing my wife, Sarah, who has no trouble sleeping. After a while I didn’t care what I watched—old movies, CNN news, The Weather Channel, talk shows—not to mention the mind-numbing commercials for hits-from-the-sixties records (no t available in any store!) , fast-food, Ginsu knives. Sometimes after the sign-off I would just sit and stare at the snow on the screen. I read once that the “snow” you get on a dead TV channel is actually the visual signature of the cosmic background radiation, an electromagnetic remnant of the Big Bang. P eople the world over have been gazing at TV snow for years, thinking nothing of it. Then in the sixties two guys do a simple experiment an d figure out what it is. Voilà! Nobel Prize. But that’s the way life is. You can look at something all your life and never see it for what it really is .
One morning Sarah padded into the den, her auburn hair fetchingly disheveled from sleep. “John, you look awful,” she said, leaning down to kiss me. “You can’t go on like this, honey. You’re seeing Dr. O’Brien today,” she added, her voice slipping into its no-nonsense mode.
I flipped off the TV. “Can’t. Got meetings this morning and a full afternoon.” Wearily, I ground my fists into my eyes. “I’ll be okay.”
“Absolutely not. Call your office and have someone else take care of things,” she said, her partially open terry cloth robe revealing her long dancer’s legs. Even first thing in the morning she looked great.
“But—”
“No buts. You’re going to see Dr. O’Brien today, and that’s that. I’ll have the girls work you into the schedule.”
When I first met Sarah she was a featured dancer in a feather show at the Tropicana. I noticed her right off. Aside from being the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen, she could dance . I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She has a distinctive way of carrying herself, a physical presence I can spot across a room—the way she stands, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of h er head. We started going out. S ix months later we were married. Sarah quit the show, got a job as a medical assistant, and before long she moved up to the front office. She has a knack for compute rs and a flair for organization, and within a year she had become the office manager for the medical corporation of Jenkins, Gilbert, and O’Brien. Beauty and brains. I was a lucky guy, and I knew it.
Sitting in the den, I knew from
I was wrong.
Missing a little sleep doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, at first it wasn’t. I’ve always been able to get at least seven or eight hours of shuteye every night. It was something I took for granted—like the sun coming up in the morning or subcontractors trying to screw me —so when I unexpectedly found that all I could manage was two or three hours a night , I told myself it was temporary. Stress-related. Whatever.
I cut down on coffee. Then I stop ped drinking caffeine entirely. At night I tried w arm milk, sleeping pills, exercise, hot baths, pot, even reading Scientific American . Things got worse. Soon it wasn’t just a little sleep I was missing. It was all of it.
In time I didn’t even bother going to bed. Instead I stayed up watching late-night TV, hoping I would get bored enough to nod off for a few hours on the couch. We have a big ranch-style home ( patio and pool out back, of course) just off Washington Street, and the TV in the den was far enough from our bedroom that I didn’t have to worry about disturbing my wife, Sarah, who has no trouble sleeping. After a while I didn’t care what I watched—old movies, CNN news, The Weather Channel, talk shows—not to mention the mind-numbing commercials for hits-from-the-sixties records (no t available in any store!) , fast-food, Ginsu knives. Sometimes after the sign-off I would just sit and stare at the snow on the screen. I read once that the “snow” you get on a dead TV channel is actually the visual signature of the cosmic background radiation, an electromagnetic remnant of the Big Bang. P eople the world over have been gazing at TV snow for years, thinking nothing of it. Then in the sixties two guys do a simple experiment an d figure out what it is. Voilà! Nobel Prize. But that’s the way life is. You can look at something all your life and never see it for what it really is .
One morning Sarah padded into the den, her auburn hair fetchingly disheveled from sleep. “John, you look awful,” she said, leaning down to kiss me. “You can’t go on like this, honey. You’re seeing Dr. O’Brien today,” she added, her voice slipping into its no-nonsense mode.
I flipped off the TV. “Can’t. Got meetings this morning and a full afternoon.” Wearily, I ground my fists into my eyes. “I’ll be okay.”
“Absolutely not. Call your office and have someone else take care of things,” she said, her partially open terry cloth robe revealing her long dancer’s legs. Even first thing in the morning she looked great.
“But—”
“No buts. You’re going to see Dr. O’Brien today, and that’s that. I’ll have the girls work you into the schedule.”
When I first met Sarah she was a featured dancer in a feather show at the Tropicana. I noticed her right off. Aside from being the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen, she could dance . I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She has a distinctive way of carrying herself, a physical presence I can spot across a room—the way she stands, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of h er head. We started going out. S ix months later we were married. Sarah quit the show, got a job as a medical assistant, and before long she moved up to the front office. She has a knack for compute rs and a flair for organization, and within a year she had become the office manager for the medical corporation of Jenkins, Gilbert, and O’Brien. Beauty and brains. I was a lucky guy, and I knew it.
Sitting in the den, I knew from
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