Primates and PJs



Monkey

My appointment for a sleep study was on November 29th. I showed up on time at 10:00 PM. It's a very odd feeling, knowing that you'll be sleeping in a strange little room with strange little people watching you on closed-circuit camera. Sleep is a very private thing. Everyone has his own sleep mishugas*. For example, I only sleep on my side, usually with one arm under my pillow, which means that sometimes I wake up with my arm hanging at my side, totally useless until I get the blood coursing back through its empty veins. Also (and this stays between us, okay?), I've taken to sleeping with Monkey lately. I got Monkey from Chaye Kohl when she visited me in the hospital. Monkey's not the only stuffed critter I got while I was sick. I also got a stuffed "Count from Sesame Street" from Dov and Juby Charnowitz, and I think maybe one or two more that I don't remember. So I guess it's acceptable for a man in his fifties (shut up) to play with stuffed things. Unless they're olives or grape leaves or something like that, in which case he'd just be downright weird. But I really have grown quite attached to Monkey. I even...nah, never mind. You're just gonna laugh. Promise you won't laugh? Swear? Okay, fine. I even talk to Monkey sometimes. You know, when I've been in the other room watching some Judge Judys I've recorded and I come in to sleep at like 2:00 in the morning and Monkey is sitting on his shelf, looking miffed. In those situations I think he's entitled to an explanation, don't you? But please don't think I'm completely crazy; I almost never talk to him unless he's the one who starts the conversation. Anyway, needless to say, Monkey wanted to come along for the sleep study. Personally I didn't see anything wrong with it, but I thought the serious scientists who make their living sitting around all night watching people snore and drool and scratch themselves might look askance at someone showing up with an inanimate sleep partner (which would also exclude any of my ex-wives). So I explained to Monkey as lovingly as I could that he'd have to stay home. I promised him a stuffed banana when I got home, and he finally went to bed; I didn't even have to tell him his favorite "Curious George" story. Incidentally, they went to school together. Monkey says that George was always a troublemaker, even way back when. He was even expelled for smoking in the Boys' Room several times! And this is who we hold up as a role model for our young, impressionable children! Another problem I had with the sleep study is that I didn't own a pair of pajamas. I couldn't very well sleep there in the state in which I sleep at home, which, by the way, I will (thankfully) leave to your prurient imagination. Chayie told me about a place in Boro Park where they sold pj's for fifteen dollars. I checked online and apparently they were indeed a bargain, even cheaper than K-mart and Walmart and Sears, oh my! So I went to the place and bought a pair that the man pulled out of the back room somewhere and dusted off and handed to me. They were made by Botany 500. Don't they make suits? I'm sure these were sitting back there since the Eisenhower Administration. They were truly among the least attractive things I'd ever seen, including that girl (and I use that term rather loosely) I went out with that Tuesday night in June of 2001. But I figured for fifteen bucks I could just wear them the one night and then burn them somewhere when no one was looking. 

*Mishugas = Literally, "craziness", but in this context, "idiosyncrasies".