4:45am this morning. Did you hear it? The screeching of a little girl in the early morning hours? No? Are you sure? It sounded as if someone took a 4 year old girl’s favorite stuffed toy and beheaded it in front of her.

Oh, wait…that wasn’t a little girl. That was me screaming. In pain. Because of my wife – The Sleep Ninja.

It has almost been 2 years since I wrote Sleep Combat.  During those two years I felt that Angela and I have reached a truce and I’ve been able to reach the peaceful bliss of sleep every night. Let’s not count the 6 months that I spent in North Carolina when it was mostly just me and the pooches sprawled out on our queen size bed of agony. It has pretty much been the norm since that entry that I would fall asleep all nice and toasty, drifting off into whatever oblivion my brain would conjure up and then I would wake up refreshed and content. However, over the past two weeks I feel like my wife is trying to pound me into submission like a K1 fighter.

Keep in mind, I’ve been home from North Carolina for about, oh let’s see, two weeks. Hmmm. During those two weeks I’ve been elbowed on top of the head, elbowed in the nose, kneed in the spine, kicked in the shins, punched in the neck, poked in the eyes, punched in the stomach and gouged with her bear claw-like feet. This morning my wife decided to go for broke and elevated her game.

I was having a wonderful sleep, quite possibly the best I’ve had in a while. I was dreaming that I was in a lush green field with flowers and butterflies and lots of doggies bounding around me. As I lay there, on my right side facing my wife and well on my side of the bed, I felt pretty darn good basking in the sun with my dog friends. That was until all I could see was a blinding, white flash in my eyes and I felt incredulous pain. From my crotch. I remember in my dream quickly disappearing from my view and being whisked back to the dark, excruciating reality of my bedroom.

Do you ever remember playing the game “Mortal Kombat”? Yeah. That’s what I sleep with every night now. Something clicks in Angela’s dome and she hears “FINISH HIM“. This morning, at 4:45am, I received the devastating knee to the crotch. My beautiful wife took it upon herself to inch closer and closer to me over the imaginary Marginot Line on our bed and delivered a  knee strike. I woke up wincing and whining in agony.

And, like some deranged serial killer, my wife stroked my hair and kept whispering ‘shhhh…shhhh…’ to me.  I feel like I’ve been sleeping with Ernesto Hoost.

[youtube width=”320″ height=”264″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bkq7-XnqRc[/youtube]

Hmmm. Ok. Maybe not a large, intimidating kickboxing Dutchman.  If not Ernesto, then I’m sure you could relate to how well I’ve been sleeping by Hans Moleman.

[youtube width=”320″ height=”264″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKV_nhTLtc8[/youtube]

I guess I’m going to start sleeping with protective gear on. Or possibly just a cup.