Sleep Talkin' Man (9 page)

I met Adam’s children during my first visit to Adam in London, just three weeks into our rekindled relationship. Adam’s son was seven, his daughter four, and from that very first day, they were wonderful with me. They are delightful, funny, easy-going kids, but also, I think that seeing their dad happy (which they hadn’t seen much of lately) was all it took for them to immediately accept me as part of their family. Since then, it has been smooth sailing all along.

Adam’s children get nearly as much pleasure out of STM as I do. We don’t let them actually read or hear most of it for themselves, mind you. After all, they are only eight and eleven
years old, and we do have some respect for age-appropriateness. But, of course, they know about their dad’s funny little habit, so most mornings when they stay over they come bounding in, asking “What did Daddy say last night?” and I feed them a sanitized version, replacing “bum” for “ass” and “jerk” for “motherfucker.” And let me tell you, it sometimes requires a fair bit of creativity to take STM’s latest and greatest and translate it into something that’s palatable to youthful sensibilities (and won’t scar them for life). Other times, there’s no sanitation in the world that will render something shareable with young ears: “How can I tell you you’re as welcome as a twenty-eight-day-old used tampon infested by maggots without offending you?” just doesn’t have a G-rated version.

Of course, some quotes are kid-suitable, and we happily let the children listen to those for themselves. The lengthy, wacky animal ones go down especially well. Here’s the kind of thing they go crazy for:

“Hey, look at me! I just made bumble bee pajamas. They’re so cuuuute, with their little leg holes. This one’s bright fuchsia with some black spots. I think that’s my favorite. And this one’s got a night cap that fits right over the antennae … WING HOLES! I forgot to put wing holes! Oh, well.
‘… and all the honey was oozy woozy, sticky and gooey, but it tasted good.’
Awww. Bed time story for tired little bumble bee. Go to sleep, bee.”

It’s a blast to watch their faces go from eyebrow-knitted puzzlement to wide-mouth amazement to unbridled glee. Kids haven’t yet learned the regrettable skill of moderating their reactions, and it’s such a pleasure to see it all hang out like that.

As delightful as it is to play this stuff for the kids, it still comes second to my marathon STM-sharing
sessions with my brother. Running his own theatre company on top of a full-time job chairing the arts department at a private high school keeps Jason frantically busy, and he doesn’t have much time to peruse the Net for sheer pleasure. When we Skype, we often get on the blog together and go through all the entries that he has missed. As we make our way through the quotes, he throws his head back and howls, his body contorts with laughter, he drops his forehead to the desk and pounds it with his palm. I’ve even seen the occasional tears of glee. It’s embarrassingly gratifying to be the bearer of such merriment to my big brother.

It happens that Jason’s young high school students have also discovered Sleep Talkin’ Man. Many a time he has arrived at a drama club meeting to find the kids doing dramatic readings of STM’s latest zingers. There he is, sitting with these fifteen-year-olds whose impressionable minds he is tasked with helping to shape, as they proclaim:

“It’s the soup!

It tastes like rancid cock butter!”

He knows he’s supposed to stop them, but all he wants is to cackle along. And it can’t help that they all know that it’s come to them care of his little sister. AWKwaaard!

Speaking of awkward, try sitting next to your mom as she listens to a recording of your husband saying:

“From now on, papaya shall be known as cunt fruit. Nasty cunt fruit. Mushy and smelly cunt fruit. You don’t like the word, don’t make me say it again.”

My mother—a woman more likely to exclaim “fiddlesticks!” than its four-letter counterpart—is surprisingly enthusiastic about Sleep Talkin’ Man, particularly when you consider that it involves hearing all manner of obscenity from the man who married her daughter. What a sport.

Heaven for a depressed masochist is an ice cream headache.

Ladies and gentlemen, please remember to put your oxygen mask on first, followed by your favorite child.

Oh, I could be rummaging around in here for ages, I
’
m never going to find some zebra ears!

Ugh, I know you. You’re alwayson the corner of Fuck-off and Cunt-bag.

I’m so sorry about the Pop-Tarts.

It really should never have happened.

I want to dance in the rain but without the getting wet bit.

Just put the fucking cow’s head on the pavement and walk away. Leave it alone, stop playing with it. It’s just a head.
Ooooh, it’s got it’s eyeballs in still.

Hey, who put my elbows on backwards?!
That’s not fucking funny!

Right. I’ve had enough.
I’m splitting you two up.
You over there and you are going all the way over there. I tell you, you’ve got to be really fucking quick and hard on these chinchillas.
Take no prisoners.

Don’t judge me.
Anybody can fall in love with semolina.

Stop throwing mangoes.
You’re going to take somebody’s eye out, or worse!

Put Mr. Squidly down!
How DARE you try and milk him! Come on, Mr. Squidly. Let me put you back in your tank. Aw, it’s okay. Why don’t you hug my arm. Yeah, use all your little tentacles.
There there. Everything’s gonna be okay.
He’s only a douche.

Listen, it’s not as if I put ear wax on my penis and shouted ’snake warts!’
OK?

Yeah, OK, you’re sorry. You’re French, you’ve got to be fucking sorry!
Mange tout twat.

I can’t believe you went to pick up a turkey without introducing yourself first.
How rude of you. How presumptuous.
A turkey has its own mind. Be kind.

Seriously, I can open my mind and empty it of everything and still do menial tasks. Picture that.
I am the perfect husband.

Sure you’re beautiful.
But when you crap you smell like every other asshole.

Leave my gnomes alone. They’re MY gnomes, living in MY house, doing MY gardening, and they’re happy. Look at their fucking smiley faces. Can’t you see how frickin’ happy they are? Who are you to judge me?! Go on, gnome, cut the grass.
Good gnome. Good gnome.

Stupid fucking fizzy fish. Never liked them.
Have some of that, you sugar-coated cunts.

If you’re looking for sympathy, go get a fucking dictionary.
You’ll find it between ’shithead’ and ’syphilis’.

It’s your hair. I’d like to see it on your head, not on the side of the fucking bath like a dead mouse.

You find me attractive?
Well, congratulations. You’ve now joined the rest of society.

No, don’t laugh at my goose.
Come on, goose. Oh, this is going to cost me a fortune in therapists.

The ravioli’s plotting something.
Always hiding his agenda. Stick with fusilli.
Really trustworthy.

Okay everybody. It’s time for some whale song. Get ready: mmMMMMMMMMmmmm, MMMMmmmmm, mmmMMMMMMmmm, MMmmmMMMMMmm…. Oh, I’m filled with so much humpback happiness right now.

“Don’t judge me by the friends I keep.
No, no, no. Judge me by the enemies I have slain!”

As you can imagine, Adam’s sleep talking can turn some situations rather awkward. We now warn in advance anyone who will be sleeping within earshot. This is a lesson that we learned the night Adam yelled out, “SOAPY FUCKING TIT WANK!” loud enough to be clearly heard by the nice older couple staying in the bamboo hut right next to ours on our honeymoon. We even mention it not only to kids who are coming for sleepovers with Adam’s children, but also their parents. We’d rather not have their kid come home telling their parents that they heard in the night, clear as a bell, “If Santa doesn’t bring me my Xbox, he’s a dead fucking fat cunt!” Even if that is a sentiment a ten-year-old boy can get behind.

Once I created the blog, it was no longer just friends and family who had access to the deep, dark inner musings of Adam’s subconscious, but potentially anyone with an Internet connection, and there have certainly been consequences to that. For example, the agency that Adam was working for was not at all comfortable when their account manager attained his fifteen minutes of Internet fame. In no uncertain terms, he was instructed never to reveal the name of the company in interviews about the blog, nor to reveal to anyone in the industry that he was Sleep Talkin’ Man. He was the Clark Kent of sleeperheroes! “What if a potential client sees the blog, doesn’t like it, and takes their business elsewhere because of it?” they reasoned. Personally, I think they missed a trick—Adam is in a creative industry (film advertising) and though I’m no expert, it seems just as likely that Sleep Talkin’ Man could have attracted clients, rather than repelled them. Nevertheless, Adam kept these two areas of his life distinctly separate as was requested.

A few weeks later, purely by coincidence, Adam was headhunted to interview with another agency. He arrived, and soon found himself sitting across a conference room table from the director. “First things first,” Tony said. “Are you Sleep Talkin’ Man?” Given the directive from his current agency to maintain the secrecy of his alter ego, Adam wasn’t sure how to respond. But, he figured, might as well get the truth out there early. Adam’s cautious assent was met with great delight, followed by an announcement to the entire office. As it turned out, he had quite a fan club among the staff. Of course, they hired him for his qualifications, but their love of STM certainly didn’t hurt! And his alter ego has proved, after all, to be a great icebreaker with clients.

STM: MANAGER EXTRAORDINAIRE

10
“Hey, don’t say anything. Why don’t you put it in an e-mail, then I can ignore it at my pleasure.”

9
“Sure you’ve got a job here. If you wanna work somewhere where you’re NOT FUCKING WELCOME.”

8
“Your job is to be ignored. Nobody’s to acknowledge you whatsoever. You should be good at that.”

7
“Wow. If you really think that was a good idea, maybe your mum should rethink having YOU was a good idea.”

6
“You call that work? I call that a fucking fatal accident. I’m a witness to your carnage!”

5
“Can everybody come into the boardroom please! Not you, you don’t work here any more. Bye bye.”

4
“I’m tired of looking for the solution to this problem. Look for someone to blame instead.”

3
“Your blue sky thinking is blighted with dark clouds of piss-poor ideas.”

2
“Don’t come in to work tomorrow. In fact, don’t come back at all. Basically, I don’t want you around, cause you’re
—
I’ll keep this simple
—
a cock. A small, pathetic, flaccid, looking-at-your-shoes-constantly kind of a cock. Okay, bye-bye!”

1
“When it comes to being told what to do, I tell, you do. Got that, dickhead?”

Letters to Sleep Talkin’ Man

When I was in my late teens, my mother woke one night to a rhythmic banging. She quickly identified it as the sound of my headboard hitting my wall repeatedly. Figuring I was about to wake the rest of the house with my latest romantic conquest, she hot-footed it to my room to stop me in my tracks.

What she saw when she opened my door was not what she expected. There I was, sitting on our new rowing machine, ON MY BED, covered in blankets, rowing for all I was worth. I only wish I had used it half as much when I was awake!

Les P.

Newcastle Upon Tyne, England

Oh, tremors! Quick, under the table!
Leave the goldfish though. Little shit.
Let him suffer. Thinks he’s all high and mighty ‘cause he’s got a castle.

Everybody wriggle. Everybody wriggle.
It’s maggot mayhem!

I will NOT wear my lobster suit and dance in the street. Not even for rhubarb and custard. Go away and leave me alone. My bee costume is waiting. Bzzzzzzzzz.

When I’m king of the coalition, nobody’s going to be able to poo at work, ever.
A dirty waste of smelly time.

I only have eyes for you … and here they are, in this lovely presentation box.
All for you.

Five balloons. Got to be five.
No point going to the disco without five.

There’s this guitar riff stuck in my head.
Doo doo doo doo-doo, doo doo doo doo-doo.
Whoever wrote it … is a cunt, because it’s stuck in my head. Bastard.
I’ll stick something in his head.

I’m gonna mess you up so badly, Stick Man, that when I’m finished with you, you’re just gonna be a scribble. Yeah!

Oh, get up and wash your shadow.
It’s filthy. Filthy!

How much for the frog?
No, that one … No, THAT one.
Goddammit, how much for the frog, that one with the tail? …
Well excuse me!
How much for the lizard then?

The joke’s on you, God.
I’m free will in action.

Mazel tov, cuntbag.