I have certain routines I do every night before I go to bed.
The Big Daddy’s routine is to say he’s going to bed. Then he goes to bed.
First, I have to take a bath because I love baths and if I’m stuck on writing something it relaxes me and I ponder sentence structure.
Usually a bath will make me sleepy unless it was too hot and then it makes me feel like passing out.
If it has been a productive bath I immediately go to the computer and write down whatever brilliant thought I had before I forget.
Then I put on my body lotion which is a very important step because I come from generations of dry skin.
After that I’ll do a quick look in the magnifying mirror for those black chin hairs that old ladies get and start plucking. I call this My Nightly Face Farming.
The magnifying mirror leads to all kinds of analysis about the state of my face and wrinkles. I push my neck skin back to see what a lift would look like. I do that almost every night.
I get my clothes ready for work the next day.
I take some melatonin if the bath didn’t make me sleepy enough.
I put night cream on.
I floss and brush my teeth.
I put my mouthguard in for my grinding.
The other night I was going through my usual routine next to a dozing Big Daddy. There was a wee, little bit of body lotion left in the bottle and so I was thump, thump, thumping on it to get that hunk I could see down at the bottom.
The dozing Big Daddy who wasn’t really dozing after all said, “Jeezus……….how long is this going to take and why do you keep beating on that thing? I’m trying to go to sleep in case you hadn’t noticed.”
I hadn’t.
I always have the hardest time remembering that there’s two people in this marriage.
