Sleeping Beauty

It has been awhile since I’ve joined in the Theme Thursday blog fair. I saw this and of course it brought back a story. I thought I’d share this one with you about Sleep.

Gladys woke with a start and rubbed her eyes. “Was I asleep” she asked Kahuna. He nodded and rearranged his arm shaking it a bit when he did.

How could she have let this happen? She hadn’t felt well but had agreed to see him anyway. She had rushed home showered and primped. She dressed in her cutest top and fluffed her hair. She gargled with warm salt water trying to stave off the sore throat then drank a double espresso to keep her exhaustion at bay. She had worked close to 60 hours that week not to mention had crammed in a 2300 mile round trip for a court hearing. But he was such a nice man and had been such a gentleman on their first date several weeks back.

Gladys had been single for quite some time and her last endeavor into a relationship had ended catastrophically to say the least. Her daddy had told her that her picker was broke and boy was he right. Every man she had chosen had been a really bad choice. They were either lazy, a cheat, mean, or just downright dastardly or all of the above. Kahuna seemed different.

He actually seemed to be the answer to a prayer if you didn’t count the fact that he was a movie talker. He was attentive without being clingy; he was kind and sweet without being weak, he was available and best of all he had a great sense of humor. So she made an exception to her newest rule of not dating.

They sat close together watching the movie, his arm around her shoulder. Gladys watched as the plot unfolded and her eyes got heavy. She watched as Leonardo DiCaprio flew the Spruce Goose.

She tried to watch but something happened and her eyes closed. The next thing she knew it was the ending credits and she had been out cold for almost 3 hours. She had fallen asleep and had laid her head in her date’s lap at the local movie theater. She was mortified. If that wasn’t bad enough she had drooled. She had drooled all over this nice man’s pants. Oh she had not just exuded a little spittle. Oh no, she had emitted enough saliva to over flow the banks of the Mississippi. She wanted to die. She prayed that the roof would open up and that GAWD would smite her right there in the local Edward’s Cinema.

Kahuna shook his arm again and dabbed at his soaked dungarees with a napkin “do you feel better now?”

“I am so sorry I fell asleep on you. I didn’t mean to. I mean I know you know I didn’t mean to. What I meant was I wouldn’t have accepted the date had I known I was that exhausted.” Gladys wiped the spittle from her cheek and chin and tried to put her now disheveled hair back into some semblance of order.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you had a good sleep.”

Gladys reached in her purse and pulled out her wallet “Please let me pay you for my ticket. I mean how rude of me to allow you to pay for my ticket and then, well, you know.”

Kahuna held up his and “Nope it was well worth the money. I mean I can’t tell you the last time I spent three hours watching a movie with a woman asleep on my lap.”

Gladys was awfully embarrassed by the whole scenario and headed toward the exit. “Thank you so much for asking me out. I really do appreciate, um, well you know, your not being upset.”

Kahuna smiled “how could I be upset with someone who made them turn the volume up because she snored so loud?”

That was it Gladys searched her purse for a knife, a letter opener, anything so that she could slit her wrist right then and there.