VISITORS IN THE NIGHT

I have visitors who come without invitation and will only visit in the dark of night when I just want to sleep. They come without warning and bring distress even when it seems that all is well.

Take last evening for instance. There was food on the table--enough for seconds or thirds. Conversation was pleasant, no one had lost his job, no teenagers were rebelling, homework was completed and the furnace kept all of us warm. I was content.

Bedtime came and still no concerns. The doors were locked, the lights were off, the children accounted for and the moon is was just the right brightness--so I slept.

I slept like a well-fed baby until 2:47 a.m. when the startling voices of the Perfection Patrol burst through my dreams. I woke up flushed, out of breath, and in a cold sweat--every muscle paralyzed.

Out of the deep abysses of my brain had come the earth-shattering message, “You ninny! You forgot to buy iodized salt again!”

Any hope for sleep was now gone. How could I sleep with images of my entire family suffering with goiters? Especially knowing that it’s my fault because I forgot to buy iodized salt?

Once one member of the Patrol gets my attention, the rest of them have to put in their two bits. I don’t have to tell you that these middle-of-the-night voices have no patience with my foibles, and nothing is too petty for them to draw to my attention.

To make it worse, they carefully time their warnings so that the next one comes just as I finally begin to drift off to sleep again, because half of their fun is watching me jerk awake over and over.

“You dummy! You forgot to water the Majestic Palm again. Can’t you see it’s turning brown?”

“I’ll bet those hoodlums you’re raising left the chicken casserole out on the counter again. Haven’t you taught them about the dangers of salmonella poisoning?”
“It’s been weeks and you still haven’t answered that letter or called your sister. After all she’s done for you.

“You had better get that left-over stew out of the refrigerator before someone eats it and gets sick. Which reminds me, you really must pay more attention to your family’s diet--they never eat anything healthy.”

“You complain that you have too much work to do, but If you were organized and had chores ready to assign after school you could get a lot more work out of your kids.”

On and on they go until the sun comes up over the mountains. The one thing I’ve learned about the Perfection Patrol is that they can only do their job in the dark of night when I would rather be sleeping. At dawn they scurry away and their onslaught stops. This gives me about 20 minutes of dreamless sleep before it’s time to get out of bed.

My family can always tell when I’ve had a rough night with the Perfection Patrol because I’m cranky from lack of sleep--and ready to dish out edicts.

“Carrie, From now on I want you to water the plants after school--can’t you see they’re dying?”

“Carl, you have to pay for any food you leave out overnight and I want one of you to go to the grocery store for iodized salt!”

I pull out a notepad to begin my list of chores while a pot of oatmeal simmers on the stove.

“Each of you must have a bowl of oatmeal before you leave this house, and come straight home from school because I have jobs for everyone.”

They know better than to argue with a sleep-deprived mother on worry overload, so they mutely gulp down a few tablespoons of oatmeal and hit the sidewalk as fast as they can.

Once everyone leaves, my energy quickly droops. I head for the nearest soft sunny spot--my bed. I’ll rest--just for a minute.

Ahhh. Mediocrity looks much better by the light of day.