Belt Up

I'm going to tell you something now.

It's something private. It's something embarrassing. It's something unexpected.

So, in essence, it is exactly the same as every other post on this blog.
Except this one is weirder.

The Poop has recently begun to wake for short periods a few times each night. After all the ground work I have put in to make her a good sleeper, this makes me L-I-V-I-D. In fact it is so vein burstingly infuriating, so hair tear-outingly galling, it is worthy of a whole post all of its very own. So before I give my brain the go ahead to actually implode with rage, I'll shut it and bottle up all those thoughts for tomorrow's barrel of laughs post.

Anyway, point is, I was up three times last night with Boo.
And somewhere between shuffling from our room to The Poop's and back, a strange thing happened. One eye open and one shut, half asleep, half awake, cellulite wobbling, climbing in bed, out of bed, boobs jangling, mid dream, eyes blurry, forever tiptoeing back and forth; I did something odd.
Peculiar.
Abnormal.

I have always been known for barking orders in my sleep. I have screamed at Dave to "get down off that chair". I have pushed him out of bed because he is "going to miss the triple jump" and I have aggressively threatened him not to "keep burying stuff in the garden". I once sat bolt upright in bed and "ssssssshhhhhh"ed so loudly he instinctively raced out of bed, searched the entirety of our downstairs, stark naked, before returning to ask me what I had heard - only for me to be happily tucked up and snoring away.

But last night was different. I didn't sleep talk.

Stirring in the night (for once not because of Boo's restlessness), I turned over in bed. And felt something.
Cold...metal...but fabric. Long...thin...yet malleable. Against me. Around me. On me.
And no, it didn't belong to my husband. That's not long.


I scrabbled about my waist. I pulled and wrestled. I heaved.
"What the bloody hell are you doing love?" Dave asked, just woken and clearly irked by my rustlings.
"Well, I think I've got a...."
"What? What is the matter? I'm trying to sleep here for God's sake.." he fumed, beginning to sit up in the darkness.
"Well, I think I'm....yeah, I am. I'm wearing...a belt."

"A belt?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I dunno."

I threw back the covers to reveal my naked body dressed only in a canvas, pull through buckle belt.

"Well, why the hell have you got that on?" he retorted, baffled.
"I dunno." I muttered, confused.
"When did you put that on?" he said, equal measures of irritation and confusion audible in his voice.
"I dunno." I responded, bemused.
"So...you...got dressed? In the middle of the night?" Dave enquired, now more awake.
"Erm...yeah." I nodded, my mind whizzing frantically trying to remember even the tiniest memory of opening a drawer or the fastening of any buckles.
"Without knowing?" he said, incredulous.
"I think so." I answered, now at a total loss.
"So...you sleep dressed? Into just a belt?"
"Looks like it."

As Dave turned away, I watched his silhouetted figure resume it's position in the bed as he shook his head wearily and muttered under his breath some thing about "absolutely un-bloody-believable".

I stood up out of the bed, unfastened the belt (which, by the way, was one of those metal 'loop' ones, where you have to thread the material back against itself through the loops in order to fasten it - God knows how I did that asleep) and put it back in the drawer.
I thought and thought for a good half an hour about just how and when I had decided that the one thing missing from my naked body at bedtime was something to keep my non-existent pants up.
Something to hang my totally unnecessary sunglasses from.
Something to preserve the modesty of my otherwise garmentless body.
But no joy. I couldn't remember anything.

So what does this mean? That I really have become a sleep dresser? Are there meetings for these sorts of people? Remedies for such afflictions?
I have terrible visions of me waking at the bus stop in only a kiss-me-quick hat and a pair of Dave's sports socks.

MY NAME IS CATHEY. I AM A SLEEP DRESSER. I UNWITTINGLY PUT ON BELTS IN THE NIGHT FOR ABSOLUTELY NO APPARENT REASON.

The moral of this story is this.
Never interrupt my sleep. It will not end well.
Particularly for the nearest accessory drawer.