Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

Who said that? I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything lately, I’m too sleepy. I was sleepy all last week, SOLS¹ or something. All I could do was stumble through my days, wishing for energy and alertness.

Then, Friday night at 10.30 PM, I got my wish. I’d avoided caffeine all day in the hopes of beating the fatigue with a good night’s rest, and taken a hot bath. But as soon as my weary carcass hit the sheets, I was wide awake.

My wife was already breathing the even, innocent breaths of the sound asleep, and I lay there staring at the ceiling trying to recall the Periodic Table of Elements. Hydrogen, Helium, ehm…

So much energy and hyper-alertness was coursing through my body I was sure all I had to do was concentrate, align the molecules in my body, and I would be able to levitate. (“Who are you kidding,” I then told myself. “You can’t even will an erection anymore.” Boy, those were the days, weren’t they, junior high school? Back then it was more a matter of willing non-erections, like in gym class or whatever.)

So I did what I always do, went downstairs onto the sofa and read a book until sleep finally arrived at 2.30. Then I got up at 5.30 to get my daughter ready for school. That’s one of the things that sucks about Austria, kids have to go to school on Saturdays too. You only get Sunday to sleep in.

I was pretty tired by the time the afternoon came, which we all knows makes us susceptible to accidents. DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY, etc. But I figured I’d be safe in the kitchen, you know?

You think about things lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling. Important things, like, what if St. Peter were actually Evel Knevel? Like, you die, arrive at the Pearly Gates and request to be admitted. A fellow with a million scars comes to the gate, wearing a white leather, silver-studded outfit with a shiny silver rodeo champ belt buckle, his joints cracking from dozens of horrible accidents.

“What injuries do you have?” Because it turns out, only people with cool injuries get into heaven.

You point out the scar over your eye. “Not much. How’d you get that?” You hit it on a doorknob scaring a wiener dog when you were a kid.

“What?” Never mind. “Anything else?” You tell him about a burn on your foot. “Getting better. How’d that happen?” Your grandmother spilled hot grease on you. That gets you barely a point.

“I broke my hand,” you say. How could you have forgotten that? And it just happened, too.

“That’s better. Broken hands are always good. How’d you break your hand?”

“Uh, baking chocolate cookies,” you tell him. He closes his book and stares at you, one eyebrow raised.

“A cookie sheet fell on it,” you say. “A really heavy one. I’m telling you, one mean cookie sheet. Actually, wait, not a cookie sheet: an oven tray. Corner first. My wife says I’m clumsy, but I like to think I interface robustly with my environment.”

“Baking chocolate chip cookies?”

“Not chips. Not regular chocolate chip cookies. I call these, eh, Mig’s super-wicked chocolate chunk nut heart attack cookies.”

Eyebrow still raised.

“See, you take a chocolate bar the size of your arm and chop HACK it into largish chunks, instead of taking normal chips, see. A chocolate bar with whole hazelnuts. Only this was a triple batch I was working on, so I had three giant bars. Three cups of sugar, I’m not kidding. A WHOLE POUND OF BUTTER! You can feel your arteries clogging just stirring the dough.”

He gives you another point. Eight to go. You remember spraining your coccyx as a kid. In a karate class! All the injuries start coming back. Skiing! Boxing! Then you fall asleep.

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[¹ Spring Onset Laziness Syndrome]