One of the hardest things of being a teacher, for me, is the first day back to school after Christmas break. And not because I have been having such a wonderful time with my family and enjoying all this time at home. No, though I have been, but that’s not why. It’s because, and I choose to quote a random video from TikTok, “for the past week my bedtime has been 2 am.”

I😩HAVE😩BEEN😩AWAKE😩ALL😩NIGHT! 😩😩

I couldn’t very well go to bed at 2 am to then get up two hours later. I would have been more tired if I did that than when I laid down. And things looked so promising too.

I was working on my laptop archiving some files away and plotting future posts on my socials pertaining to my eventual return to the stage when at 11 pm I thought, “Oh shit! I’m feeling kinda sleepy. I may actually be able to sleep tonight.” I wasn’t feeling too optimistic because yesterday I woke up crazy sleepy at 10 am on account that the night before I had taken a sleeping pill in hopes to help me snap back into my normal schedule. Well, I was still so loopy from that ONE FREAKING PILL , that I slept an additional hour. And usually when I wake up after 10 am I know I’m in for a rough night. I even warned my husband about it because he’s the type that will wake up in the middle of the night, find me still awake, and scold me. Like, really?

So when at 11 pm I felt sleepy, I felt hope. I rushed with some of the work I was doing on my computer then realized, it was now almost midnight and I was even more tired so I jumped on it. I laid next to my husband, put my phone away, and started my nightly ritual fantasy of paying homage to Madonna, as one does before bed.

This is something I’ve been doing every night for over 30 years. I fantasize that I’m putting on a Madonna show to a sea of Madonna loving fans. But I’ll admit, since I’ve gotten older, my tributes have become more intimate. Now my fantasy revolves around me putting on a show at my school, and let me tell you, it’s a highly impressive show considering it takes place at my school’s gym/auditorium. The gist of the show is that my younger coworkers are paying tribute to their favorite artists like Taylor or Beyonce then just as the third or fourth act is about to wrap it up, a giant screen starts to descend from above in which I am been projected knocking on the screen, essentially interrupting my coworkers’ act to remind them who the real Queen is by saying with mad Gen X attitude, “Excuse me little girls, Madonna has entered the chat.”

With that, the screen goes black, the lights go out, the gym doors fly open, and I appear through the doors, which at this point are actually hard to see due to all the stage smoke around them. I’m wearing a black outfit with a hood over my head that covers my face (they can’t see me but I can see them) and I rush to the stage while the intro to Papa Don’t Preach a la Blond Ambition is blasting. I take center stage, throw my arms in the air, then wrap them around my stomach, drop to my knees justifying the urgency that pulsates the music, and with desperation all over my face to match the theme of the song, I reveal it by pulling back my hood, breaking into the first verse.

Iconic.

Lemme just say, this was very effective because I got so lost in my mental visuals that it rocked me (literally) to sleep only to be awakened about 30 minutes later to my husband’s thunderous snoring.

I love him, but sweet Jesus, the way that man snores.

It’s almost like there’s a cryptic purpose behind it, you know? As if he is trying to desperately relay a message to me but he only speaks “snoring” and because I don’t speak it, he gets frustrated and just keeps repeating himself over and over and louder every time. You know? Like when someone is on their phone and the person they are talking to can’t hear them so their sensible response is not to hang up and call back. No. It’s to yell louder and louder as if that’s somehow going to tell the cell phone towers, “Oh shit, dude really has something to say!”

Now awake, I turned to him and looked at him. I knew it was over. My window had come, I had taken it, and he took a REM brick and smashed the shit out of that window. There was nothing left for me to do but get my phone and watch videos on silent as to not disrupt my husband the way he had just me.

About two hours later he woke up, saw the time, saw me still up, and scolded me like a child that had escaped his bedroom with his mother’s tablet to watch Blippi. I tried to explain to him that I had in fact fallen asleep but his homophobic snoring had ripped me from the loving arms of a Madonna induced slumber. He just scoffed turning his back to me. Fully dismissing me. And I just laid there, battered.

At 4 am I decided to roll outta bed. I first used the bathroom and took one look at myself in the mirror. Bloated and tired. I looked just like Bluto from Popeye. I now have to get ready for work in an hour. I teach kindergarten and first grade. I have no sleep. I’m in so much trouble!!!

Mercy children! Mercy!!!