I’ve been sick since last week…and it’s a weak, yet persistent little bug.  It’s annoying.

But, at least being medicated gives you some interesting dreams!  And this morning, with the help of NyQuil and wine before bed, followed by DayQuil and a breakfast of Monster Lo-Carb and black RedVines for breakfast…I finally feel like sitting up long enough to scribble down some of them.

Or one, in particular.

We’ll see if I have any mojo left for the others.

Not to bury the lede, or anything, but I’m not particularly afraid of spiders.  I’m not the type of guy that runs around picking them up and taking them outside…but after the initial revulsion, I tend to tolerate their presence.

So, I’m laying in bed the other morning – wheezing – trying to go back to sleep.  My throat is on fire, probably from sleeping with my patio door open so that the murderous Myrtle can go in and out as she pleases…which is solidly just defensive thinking to hopefully get as much undisturbed sleep for the night as possible.  It’s 6:58 in the morning and I can hear the construction team warming up outside my bedroom window prior to beginning their work on the hotel project next door.

My sleep window is usually a pretty tight affair.

I’m stuck between getting up for some Naproxen and Melatonin so I can just knock myself out for a few hours (I’m out of NyQuil at this point) and successfully dozing off and on.

I’m actually dreaming – or hallucinating, depending on your definitions – in my moments of unconsciousness.

I wake up, sensing something crawling on my wrist.  My hand is tucked underneath my pillow, supporting my head, but close enough to the wall that I briefly consider what might have crawled out of the crack before dismissing the sensation as my pillowcase brushing one of the hairs that grows away from my skin versus laying down with the rest of my arm hair.

I’m chuckling at what on Earth would ever lead me to believe there might be monsters under my bed.  Surely, a cat as intelligent as my murderous and blood thirsty Myrtle wouldn’t just stare at my bedskirt for no reason whatsoever…would she?

I fall back asleep.

Only to be woken up by my neighbor leaving for work.  Two doors slamming is his farewell – the first is the door to his unit, the second the fire exit door since he takes the stairs down versus the elevator.

My throat is on fire.  I decide that I’m not going to get any more sleep without serious sleep inducers and just decide to get up.  I do some serious coughing as the phlegm in my throat shifts position from the horizontal to the vertical.  I’m having trouble expelling any of it while I cough.

I hop in the shower to wash the sick sheen off my body after a night of erratic feverish sleep.  I keep coughing as the heat further loosens up my throat.  Aren’t you glad I didn’t say “phlegm” again?  I’m feeling better overall, even though I know that the heat from the shower is going to mess with my body temp for a few hours to come.  I’m finishing up, brushing my teeth and enjoying the steam wishing I could clear my throat.

Yeah, I brush my teeth in the shower…what of it?

I’m rinsing the toothpaste from my mouth when I’m hit by a huge throat tickle.  Spewing water and toothpaste suds all over the shower wall, I successfully avoid drowning myself and double-over, coughing.  I’m bracing myself against the wall with one hand, just getting in a killer ab work out as I cough.

A nearly solid chunk of phlegm flies onto the shower floor as I finally cough up what was in my throat.  It’s about the size of a date.

Gross.

I’m still coughing a little, my throat is still a little tickle-y.  I’m staring, horrified, at what just came out of me when I notice that it’s kind of darker in the core and lighter and whitish at the edges…and that there’s a…spider leg sticking out of one edge?!?

Eeewww.

I lean my body against the shower wall imagining how easily a spider could have crawled into my mouth given my tendency to lay flat on my back with my mouth wide-open when I’m congested in order to suck as much oxygen in as possible while I’m sleeping.  Snoring, some might say.

I’m hit by another round of small coughs, which result in some splatter on my hand…great, I’ve probably coughed my throat raw and am actually bleeding.

The splatter starts moving around.

My throat explodes outward with baby spiders as my body explodes upward in bed.

Well, now I’m awake.

I prop up pillows behind me and grab my iPad to read.

“Let’s search the place for Hex Bags before we go canvass the neighborhood and talk to his friends…see if anyone strange has been hanging around the neighborhood or if this guy had any enemies.”

I’ve fallen asleep again…

More likely, I’m in that semi-asleep state between being truly awake and truly unconscious.  I soothe my active mind into just going with it.  I’m curious to see what has been going on with my subconscious self lately.

“Cut!” someone yells, and I push myself up from the floor of the shower just in time to see Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles walk away from my mostly naked self.

I really need to stop binge-watching Supernatural while I’m taking cold medicine.