I’m in a deep Temazepam-induced sleep. I have been experiencing a bout of insomnia for the past several months. I hear a relentless ringing in the distance. The sound becomes part of my dream.

In my dream, I’m forced to return to work at Dr. Wozniak’s office, answering phone calls. I worked there while I was in high school and until I was twenty-one. For some unknown reason, forty years later, I’m still dreaming about working there. I have had countless jobs since that first job, but the dream continues.

Finally, I emerge from the foggy depths of my dreamland and realize that the ringing is coming from my phone, not from deep within my subconscious. I stagger somewhat haphazardly over to the phone. I trip over my slippers and stub my toe.

“Hello, hello, do you know what time it is? Who is this? What do you want?”

“You don’t know me, but I know you. I know where you live. I know that you drive an old white Subaru Wagon. I know you drove through the light at the intersection at William Dalton Boulevard last Tuesday, the fifteenth of October. I saw what you had in the back of your wagon. Unless you meet with me and give me $10,000 dollars, I’m going to tell the police all about it. I have pictures of your car and your tags.”

“What in the world are you talking about? You must be some nut. Do not call me again. I’ll call the police and tell them that you’re trying to extort money from me.” I hang up the phone and bang it in the cradle about ten times for good measure.

I stumble back to bed, managing to stub my big toe once again. I curse up a storm. SOB I moan, as I rub my poor beleaguered toe. I throw myself back into bed and pull the covers over my head. I tightly close my eyes and try to will myself back to sleep. Nothing. Sleep does not visit me. I’m reluctant to take another sleeping pill.

I‘ll be a mess tomorrow if I do. I have a busy day tomorrow, including an appointment with the accountant, which I have been dreading. I know that when he goes over my accounts, I’m going to owe a pretty chunk of change to Old Uncle Sam’s coffers.

The phone conversation keeps running through my mind as if it is on a memory loop. I’m the first person to acknowledge that I have obsessive-compulsive thoughts. Thoughts I have difficulty controlling.

What in the world was this guy talking about? What does he think he saw in my car? He had described my car, but I’m sure plenty of old Subaru Wagons are still on the roads. I try to recall the fifteenth of October. I just can’t. I‘ll have to check my calendar tomorrow. I would do it right now if my brain weren’t in a complete fog. I flip on the lamp and write a note on the pad. I keep it there to record my random thoughts and insights in the wee hours. Unfortunately, my handwriting, under the best circumstances, looks like a chicken scratch.

After tossing and turning for three hours. I admit to myself I won’t go back to sleep this night. I dangle my legs over the side of the bed and push my feet into my bedraggled slippers. They are on the wrong feet. I leave them that way.

I make my way downstairs, almost tripping over my cat, Hilda.  Sometimes, I think she might have a homicidal side to her personality. She has repeatedly caused or nearly caused me to fall down the steps.

I turn on the lights as I pass through the living room, the dining room, and finally into my office. I sit down at my desk, turn on my computer, and look at my calendar. On the fifteenth of October, I taught a class on haircutting at the main J.C. Penny’s hair salon. Huh? What in the world does he think he saw? What did I have in the back of the car?”

I think about it for about two minutes. It comes to me. I had the mannequin heads piled up in my back seat. My students had practiced a haircut and blowout on them. I took them home in my car so I could return them to the main office the next day. I sit there for a moment and start laughing out loud. What did this guy think I was some kind of serial killer? Did he think that I kept heads as souvenirs?

The phone rings again. It is now almost four o’clock in the morning.

“Hello.”

“Alright, lady, now you have had time to consider the situation you are in. When do I get my money? If you don’t give it to me tomorrow, I will start adding interest to it.”

“Well, buddy, I’ll tell you where you can go. I didn’t do anything wrong. So, feel free to report it to the police along with the pictures. Then you can go straight to hell.”

I slam down the phone. I start laughing again, a real belly laugh. I get up, turn out the lights, walk back up to my bedroom, and fall asleep. I haven’t had any trouble sleeping since then. I sleep like a newborn baby. No more Temazepam for me.