There is something strange going on with water. More than usual strange. What. You don’t think water is strange? How else do explain that water can make the Grand Canyon but can’t wash peanut butter off a knife in the dishwasher? Strange!  But that’s not the kind of water strange (strange water?) I’m talking about. I have a whole different kind of strange going on.

I am a relatively sound sleeper. Years of rotating shifts, working very early hours, and being on call, while still having to function in a world that pays homage to 9-5 for basic business functions like banking and haircuts meant I had to be able to sleep through just about anything to get any kind of rejuvenating rest. Unless it was a child’s cry or a job’s beeper I slept through it. (Yes, beeper. You know the world didn’t always have cell phones. Back in the 70s if you had a job that required you to be reachable you carried a pager.) (Even if you weren’t an international drug smuggler.) It had to be the right pitch for a sound to get through to me while I was sleeping. Otherwise, I had been told, a bomb could go off next to the bed and I’d never hear it.

Well, let’s fast forward to today. The child is grown and she might still cry at night over some things but since she is about 12 miles away I won’t hear it. Usually. And the pages, whether through a beeper or later a cell phone, stopped about 3 months after I retired. (Some people were slow to get the message.) But my ability to sleep through anything is still functioning. Mostly. I can still tune out just about any external stimuli but I’m almost always awakened once during the night to….ah…..you know.

Every night I go to sleep with a bottle of water on my night stand. (You knew we’d get back to water eventually. Congratulations on hanging in there with me this far!)  I never remember drinking any of it but every morning when I get up it’s at least half empty. Not only do I never remember drinking any water, I don’t remember ever being awake during the night. (Um, unless I get up to…ah…, moving on.)

Am I a sleep drinker? Do I have such a water craving that I reach over, grab and uncap the bottle, glug away at a few ounces, replace the cap, and return the bottle to its place on the nightstand all without waking? If I didn’t have water next to me would I be sleep walking to the kitchen then sleep pouring a glass full so I could get my water fix during the night?

How does that happen? I have to figure it out. This is something I’m going to have to think on until I come up with a reasonable explanation about how I can drink and sleep at the same time. Unless it’s not me. I still haven’t solved the mystery of the open doors, drawers, and other front pieces. Perhaps with all their nocturnal activities the house fairies have now developed a need to wet their whistles.

I’d like to think I’m not so oblivious to my surroundings that I’m even missing the times that I am the one interacting with them when I quench a nighttime thirst. On the other hand, just in case it is the house fairies and they’re finally going to get around to actually working around here I want to keep them happy. If that means letting them drink my water, who am I to argue?

I certainly don’t want to make waves.