This past Monday was my first day back to work after a nice, quiet week off. I don't know about you, but, for me, the first day back at it after a break seems a little more tiring than usual. The two in the morning alarm clock is particularly shrill and unforgiving. Even the clock radio gets a little snippy. For example, Monday morning, the radio did not lull me awake with some gentle James Taylor or Paul Simon tune. In fact, I'm pretty sure, when the thing went off, it was Darth Vader singing They're Coming To Take Me Away. Anyway, I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the station. After achieving my usual level of almost-mediocre performance on the morning news and, then, as per my contract, doing the monthly oil change and tire rotation on the news anchor's cars, I headed home.

When our kids were little, they were never very interested in taking naps so I never got into that good, healthy habit. Now, with all the kids at school you'd think I'd know better...especially on a more-pooped-than-usual day. I have a very good role model around the house now, in the form of our dog. He must sleep 23 hours a day. He gets up around 5:30...eats...goes out...sleeps until I get home...takes a walk...sleeps...wakes up to say hi to the kids as they get home...sleeps. Every now and then, if he's feeling chipper, he will get up from the floor and climb up onto the couch. If I am in the kitchen and drop some food on the floor, he just looks at it...then up at me with a look on his face that says "I'd like to eat that but it would mean getting up so, if you don't mind, could you slide that over here." On weekend nights, when I make the effort to stay up a little later than usual, the dog starts giving me dirty looks around 7:30 p.m. Well, he opens just the "dirty-look"eye. The point is, I should heed the dog's un-woofed advice, and take a snooze. But, I don't usually have the smarts to do it.

Instead, I did a few little chores. (Coincidently, my family has always considered me a bit of a little chore.) I mowed the lawn. Took the dog for a walk. Read the paper. Before you know it, the kids were getting home. By that time of the afternoon, it would've been self-defeating to take a nap but I made up my mind to get to bed as early as possible. As it turned out, that was 9:00 p.m. Here's where this meandering, obviously irrelevant story takes a nasty turn.

About 10:00 p.m., I woke up...scratching my legs like crazy. I felt like Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend except it wasn't the weekend and I'm not a suave movie actor. My first thought was that the itchy stuff was from mowing the lawn. Maybe I had stepped in some nasty, itch-producing patch. I thought about one of my brothers who had gotten into some allergy-producing plant while trimming in his backyard and ended up looking a little like The Elephant Man. He always has had a large noggin but, with the swelling, he looked like a float in search of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Well, I did not have any rash on my legs...just the itching. Also, why would it take all day to start to feel the effects of a sneaky outdoor predator? Then, I thought, maybe the dog had gotten into something and, sleeping on the bed as usual, he had passed it onto me. Well, this canine is allergic to everything and has very sensitive skin. He's a Golden Retriever who's a little afraid of the water and would probably break out in hives if he ever touched a duck. Since he was not in any discomfort, I ruled out that possibility.

I got out of bed and scrubbed my legs just in case. (This was very out of character, as my normal bathing day is 15th of each month.) Then I thought "Maybe it's just very dry skin." I've sat through enough Lifetime movies with my wife, to know that dry skin is, quite possibly, one of the worst things that can happen! I grabbed a tube of something and slathered it on. (I was going to insert a joke about accidentally using Preparation H and, then, discovering my ankles had shrunk so my socks wouldn't stay up, but I decided that would be in poor taste. ) After these therapies, I went back to bed, but not to sleep. The scratching and itching continued. The clock struck 11 and I got up from bed again and headed out the door. Everyone was still up! At 11:00 at night! My suspicions were right: after I go to bed, they all party! Chips. Dip. Music. Games. I tapped my wife on her shoulder just as she was about to do the limbo, and asked if she had any idea why I looked like a boot camp for fleas. She did not. She suggested I take some allergy medicine but I declined, knowing I had to be up in about three hours.

I trudged back up to bed. Then, it hit me! The dryer! Softness! Little white sheets! I am not prone to allergies. Only a couple things produce such reactions for me: the possibility of doing hard work and...those little white sheets you throw in the dryer to take care of static cling and make your clothes softer. How could this have happened? Early in our courtship, I had confided this weakness to my wife-to-be. She promised to keep my secret and not use them. Had she gone back on her word? Was it an innocent "oversight" or something more nefarious? I rushed into the laundry room and there it was...a box of the stuff. They can put all the little cuddly bears and words like "fresh" on the container they want...all I see is the work of the devil. Satan not satin!

As I started to change the sheets, the woman who promised to love, honor and go without soft towels, entered. Her first words: "I thought, maybe, you'd outgrown it." She meant the allergy not the Eeyore PJ's I was wearing. Outgrown it? I'm 45 years old. That's like saying I should buy shoes a couple sizes too big so I can grow into them. I'm on the other end of the growth continuum now. Everytime I put on my extra strong glasses and look down, the ground is getting closer. I'm shrinking. There's no such thing as a compact car for me anymore. My ears constantly ring. My eyes have decided to go Mr. McGoo on me. My gray hair is struggling vainly to cover a bald spot that will soon look like a landing pad for NewsChopper 9. And, my lovely wife, thinks I could still grow out of something?!

Well, her answer was actually sort of a compliment so I couldn't really be angry. I ended up getting about an hour and 15 minutes of sleep Monday night but decided I really shouldn't take it out on my wife. After all, it was just one night for me, while, for nearly 20 years, I've made her skin crawl.