i am a zombie

Remember Dawn of the Dead? And I don’t mean the ‘04, 28 Days Later copy, I mean the George Romero version, the 1978 “original.” (I say “original” with quotes because really, the 1978 Dawn of the Dead was just a remake of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. You with me?)

Anyway.

In Dawn of the Dead, Roger gets bitten by a zombie, which means he’s definitely going to turn into a zombie within a day or two. But he doesn’t die right away, which means he KNOWS he’s dying and is going to turn into a zombie. Very poignant. Here’s what he says:

“Don’t do it [shoot me in the head] until you are sure I AM coming back! I’m gonna try . . . not to . . . I’m gonna try . . . not to . . . come back. I’m gonna try . . . not to . . .”

And, of course, a few seconds later he dies, and a few minutes after that, he sits straight up and snarls like a zombie, and Peter shoots him dead. Sorry if I just spoiled a key plot point of a 1978 movie for you.

Well, every night is like that for me. Lemme esplain.

Apparently I snore. I’ve thought about killing myself because of this (not really, and apologies to all of you who think making a joke about killing myself is in bad taste). My suicide note would say, simply and only, “Apparently, I snore.”

Why is snoring so bad? Because there’s nothing I can do about it. I simply snore. Which sucks for me, but REALLY sucks for Kim.

Well, actually, maybe there are a couple things I can do about it.

I snore generally when any of the following 4 things happen:

1. I weigh more than 185 lbs. My weight usually fluctuates between 180 lbs and 190 lbs. When I’m super fit and fast on the bike, I weigh about 180. When I’m a fat cow and have done several lines of Oreos, and haven’t, um, pooh’d for several days (yes, yes, I know, that’s a different topic for a different post), then I weigh about 190. But when I weigh 184, I generally don’t snore. When I weigh about 186, I DO snore. It’s like gravity, it just IS.

2. I sleep on my back. You would think this would be easy to solve, right? Just sleep on your side? But a shoulder injury keeps me from comfortably sleeping for more than a few hours in a row on my side, so I always end up on my back. Also, I really LIKE sleeping on my back. I’ve read that the best solution to sleeping on one’s back is to wear a t-shirt with a tennis ball sewn into a little compartment in the lower back of the shirt. But I don’t like the sound of that.

3. I’m camping. I dunno, something about the open night air, dust, whatever. I apologize in advance (and in retrospect).

4. I get up in the middle of the night and gnosh. Well, actually, when I gnosh AND drink a glass of milk (or a bowl of cereal, which inherently includes milk). The milk somehow coats the back of my throat, making me all phlegmy, and causes me to snore like a drowning cow.

Do you see the Dawn of the Dead connection? Every night I go to bed with the intention of NOT snoring. Every night I intend NOT to get up and eat cereal and drink milk, to NOT weigh 186 lbs, to NOT sleep on my back. Although, sometimes I DO intend to camp. Whatever.

But almost every night, yup, I snore. And so every night, Kim has to shoot me in the forehead to put me out of her misery.

So I guess it’s kind of like Groundhog Day too.