Shake the Rattle

I haven’t been sleeping well. Our bed has a metal headboard with a design full of loops and swoosh-like thingies. At one place, where metal connects with metal, it’s been rattling a bit. Whenever I turned over in my sleep (a common occurrence, apparently), the headboard would rattle and wake me up.

For many months, I woke up several times a night.

But then I’d go right back to sleep. And then I’d wake up again. Then back to sleep. Up. Sleep. Up. Sleep. I tightened screws and did everything I could think of, but nothing worked. (Of course, the rattling never bothered my wife so she slept fine.)

Last night, the rattling was insane right from the beginning and I couldn’t fall asleep. It didn’t help that I was already upset over a run-in with an adult trying to keep teens away from my book. So I reached up, grabbed one of the loops, grit my teeth, and shook the heck out of the thing.

And the rattling stopped. No more rattle! Woo-hoo!!!

When I woke up this morning, it was my first time opening my eyes since shaking the headboard. But the best part of all were the dreams. It had been a long time since I could recall any of my dreams. And I love dreaming! Especially the dreams you get on a good night’s sleep.

A mob of librarians carried me through the library on their shoulders. They were showing me all the places they decided to shelve Thirteen Reasons Why. Teen fiction. Adult fiction. Poetry. Self-help. Travel(?). History(?!?!). They finally set me down in front of the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. In my favorite column, “The Pop of King” by Stephen King, Uncle Stevie spent the entire page rejoicing in his latest literary discovery.

Guess whose book he was talking about!

I love dreaming so much...