Jennie

I have a dream.

And in this dream I'm under the covers in bed, just a few scant inches away from Lisa's body. I stare at her prone form lying next to me, the greenish-blue glow from the alarm clock on the bedside table providing just enough illumination for me to see the shallow rise and fall of her chest. The sheet is draped low over her hips as she sleeps peacefully with one arm flung over her eyes and the other resting on her taut, naked stomach. I slide my body ever so slowly across the bed, careful not to disturb her, until I'm so close I can feel the heat from her skin warming me from head to toe. I pull my arms out from under the sheet and my hands reach out towards her. I connect with her smooth, muscular chest, slide my fingers up her body, and...choke the ever living shit out of her.

Okay, that's not really a dream. It's more of a wish if you will, something I fantasize about when business is slow at the shop, when I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, or pretty much every waking moment of every single day when I find myself yawning and cranky from lack of sleep. But it's not like I would ever follow through with this fantasy. I love Lisa. I really do. Sometimes it's just a toss-up on whether or not I love sleep more.

A few months ago, I hadn't even known Lisa existed. Okay, I knew she existed; somewhere out there, over the rainbow, in a land far, far away living her own life. I never believed in a million years that she would ever stop and give me, her one-night-stand from college, a second thought. Turns out I was wrong on both counts. A land far, far away had turned out to be a few miles from where I lived and that second thought I figured she had never given? Well, much to my dismay, and using a Harlequin Romance novel cliché, she had spent years pining for me and searching the world for 'the one that got away'.

That's me by the way, in case you haven't been paying attention.

Here I am, a twenty-four-year-old single mother to Gabi (the wonderful parting gift I received in appreciation of my mad virginity-giving-up skillz, 'yo) when suddenly, the person I spontaneously gave said virginity to after a rousing game of beer pong at a frat party shows up in my home town to whisk me off my feet and claim the son she never knew she had. This doesn't happen in real life. Something this perfect only happens in books or John Hughes movies.

Alright, so Lisa has never stood outside my window holding a radio above her head and she's never run down the street to sweep me up into her arms for a toe-curling kiss and hand me a pair of diamond earrings she gave to some other skank just moments before. Our story isn't necessarily a textbook eighties movie. There have been anxiety attacks, freak-outs, drunken ramblings, inappropriate cursing, misunderstandings, arguments, two-finger eye-threats, and chocolate covered sex in a public place that only by the hair of a gnat's testicle avoided being publicly televised. Through it all though, Lisa and I have managed to work through our problems with the speed an accuracy of a thirty-minute sitcom on prime time television. It's no "Some Kind of Wonderful," but it's damn near close. I'm still waiting for my street kiss and diamond earrings, though.

In the middle of all this chaos, I am also busy following my dream of opening my own candy and cookie shop. I know right? Why not add one more thing to worry about to my growing pile. There's a reason why I have a magnet on my fridge that says, "You can sleep when you're dead."

My best friend Doyeon and I had always talked of one day owning businesses together. While I was busy with the whole single mom gig and put my aspirations on a back burner, Doyeon was finishing up college and got a head start on her dream. Little did I know, she had also made plans to assure that my hopes didn't die along with my ability to sneeze and not piss myself.

I've always been a pretty independent person, so having someone hand me my dream in a neat little package with a bow on top took some getting used to. Doyeon had inherited a good chunk of change from her grandfather when he passed away years earlier and putting that money to good use by purchasing a building where we could have adjoining businesses was the only option for her. It had taken me a few days to get my head out of my ass and realize that she didn't do it out of pity. She had done it because she loves me and having her dream come true wouldn't have meant nearly as much to her if mine wasn't becoming a reality right along with her.

So in summary, I am EXHAUSTED. And I guess that brings us back to my choking fantasy. Living with another human being takes a little getting used to. So far there are only minimal amounts of irritating qualities we find in each other, and we've overcome those obstacles and are still growing strong. I love Lisa more than I ever thought possible, and she has proven to be the best parent a woman could ever want for her son. But I swear to God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Christ's childhood friend, Biff, that if she doesn't stop waking me up at four-fifty-eight in the morning, every fucking morning, with her buzz saw snoring, I am going to go David Carradine on her ass.

Oh yes, young grasshopper, you shall choke in your sleep.

Although the more I think about it, David Carradine choked himself in some weird sex thing, didn't he? I don't think I can convince Lisa to choke herself out no matter how naked I get.

I've tried everything to make my nights of sleep less irritating. I've gently pushed her arm so she would roll over because according to Google, a simple change of position will put a halt to the snoring.

False. And shut up, everything on Google is true! How else would I know that the world's oldest living goldfish is forty-one and her name is Fred? Or that when you type the word "askew" in Google search the page will tilt slightly clockwise? These are facts, people!

My dad had told me to try buying a box of nasal strips for Lisa to fasten across the bridge of her nose every night before bed.

Didn't work. I woke up the next morning with nasal strips stuck in places where nasal strips should never be stuck.

It's all fun and games until you need to lock yourself in the bathroom with tweezers, a mirror, and a flashlight.

I've kicked my feet and smacked my hands against the mattress repeatedly in frustration while whisper-screaming about cock-sucking snorers and their lack of respect for people who sleep quietly, and I've jerked the covers off of her, hit her in the face with her own pillow, that I yanked out from under her head, while plugging her nose.

Hey, don't judge me. I'm losing sleep here.

And I had only plugged her nose long enough for her to start choking on her own spit. As soon as she could speak, she told me all about the dream she was having where she thought she was suffocating and how she realized while she was dream-dying that she forgot to tell me she loved me before she went to sleep. Yes, I felt guilty. Yes, I made it up to her by having sex with her at five in the morning, and no I have never told her that it was me who actually tried to off her in her sleep.

Sometimes couples need a few secrets.

Lisa thinks my irritation with her snoring is cute. Of course she does. she's not the one with her ears bleeding in the middle of the night, praying for her bed mate to asphyxiate in her sleep. Oh no, she is off in dreamland, wondering why the soundtrack of her really good sex dream suddenly includes the melody of knives being sharpened.

Last night, one of my well placed kicks to her thigh, er, I mean gentle taps, finally got her to shut up and roll over. It was a thing of beauty. The silent, peaceful tranquility that flowed through the bedroom almost made me weep with joy. Sadly, as soon as I fell asleep and began happily frolicking through my own dreamland, Lisa was shaking me awake and asking if I said something. Because according to her, she had been sleeping like a rock but could have sworn she heard me ask her if the green Jell-O should go in the trunk with the snapping turtles.

A public service announcement for other: If you see that your significant other is fast asleep and your initial whispered question doesn't get a response, don't be surprised if we start spewing green vomit out of the mouths of our rapidly spinning heads as you shake us awake to ask your stupid question fifty decibels louder than the first time.

So here I am again, wide awake at five in the morning, giving the love of my life the stink eye in the dark and wondering if I will be able to keep a straight face when looking at her if I go ahead and order that chin strap contraption I saw on the Home Shopping Network the previous week. As I stare at the ceiling and wonder why a snoring prevention mechanism has to look so much like a jock strap for the face, I suddenly remember something else I read on Google not that long ago that I haven't tried yet (Fred, the forty-one-year-old goldfish – FRED IS REAL, dammit!). The article had stated that a short, loud yell of a random, one-syllable word will break through the snoring person's conscience just enough to get them to stop snoring without fully waking them up.

I roll my head to the side to stare at Lisa's profile. Watching her sleep soundly while I currently reside in insomnia-land, as a direct result of her deviated septum, makes me feel stabby. Since I can't take my anger out on her septum without making her bleed, I figure I might as well try one more thing. Especially since buying the chin/jock/anti-snoring strap will require that I address Lisa as Dick Face from now on. Something I'm assuming she will frown upon.

I take a deep breath and let out my one-syllable word. "F-U-U-U-U-U-U-C-K!"

In the blink of an eye Lisa jolts awake with a scream, flailing her arms and legs and scrambling across the bed until she falls off the side and lands on the floor with a loud thud.

"Son of a bitch! What the hell was that?" she mutters from the floor.

"I think there's green Jell-O in the trunk with the turtles," I state before rolling over and snuggling under the covers.