Mundane Mondays

You lay your head down on your pillow after a nice, steamy shower. It's early, 9:30, you rarely go to bed so early. The bed is welcoming to your ever-tired body. It feels so good, contorting to your curves and joints. You close your eyes, sighing blissfully. This, you think, is exactly what I needed. You welcome the deathlike state of sleep.

You have flipped your pillow three times now, unable to sleep with the warmth it's emitting. You have one foot out of the blanket that is pulled up just past your torso. Somehow it is too hot and equally too cold. You have flipped, tossed, and turned too many times to count. It has been hours since you laid down. The house is so silent, it is rarely this quiet. You check the clock, 4:46 in the morning. You stumble your way to the bathroom, careful to not trip on your messy floor, not turning on the flashlight on your phone yet because you don't want to wake anyone.

You sit on the toilet longer than you needed to, assessing yourself and the bathroom floor with your flashlight. There is no need to turn on the abrasive lights in the bathroom. Sure, you may be a little hungry and you're parched, but other than that, you are perfectly fine. It doesn't feel like it's nearly five in the morning. Your only plan for the day was doing laundry, so why not get an early start on it?

Carefully and quietly, so as to not wake your dog who will bark because you scared him, and not wake your sleeping spouse who has work soon, you gather up some laundry from the bathroom floor. An odd number of socks, some shirts, the pair of pajama pants you were wearing before your shower hours ago, and the underwear that falls out of the pants. You grab your phone and shine it on the floor, making your way through the bedroom and kitchen so you can unlock the back room door to start the sad load of laundry you gathered from the bathroom.

Once you are at the washer and you've thrown your bathroom clothes in, you look around. You see the oven mitt you spilled black cherry water on the other day and tossed it towards the washer intending to get to it later. As you reach down to grab it, you are faced with a graveyard of socks that fell on the floor during countless moves of clothes from the washer to the dryer. You have woken up your cat, who was sleeping atop the dryer, on a towel because the clean clothes basket never made it back on the dryer the last time you put laundry away. Your cat yawns, stretches, and looks at you with his big, light lime-colored eyes. You pat his soft head, and he reaches for you.

"Sorry, bud, I didn't mean to wake you," you tell him. He softly meows his reply telling you it's okay.

There are baskets of clothes that need to be cleaned by the washer so you pilfer through those to make a load. More shirts, a pair of dress pants, some more socks, a coat that you ignore, and so many washcloths. You didn't even think you owned that many washcloths. Turns out they were just in laundry purgatory.

You debated starting a pot of coffee, but you're pretty sure you didn't empty it the last time you made coffee and there isn't a trash bag in the can, so you head back to bed.

"Why are you up?" your spouse mumbles, voice heavy with sleep.

"I can't sleep," you say.

"You should try to."

"Go back to sleep, okay?"

Within seconds they are snoring, likely having no recollection of having the conversation. You spend some time on your phone, sooner than you realize it's 7 in the morning. You know your spouse is going to get up for work soon, so you decide to shut your eyes.

Eyes shut, mind racing, you hear the sounds of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing as you continuously think. You try to stop it, but you can't. Suddenly, you can't feel your fingers, you twitch them and regain feeling as they clutch around the vape you have on your chest. You can't remember what you were thinking about, but you were ripped from your incomprehensible thoughts by the sounds of your spouse's gentle alarm.

"Did you sleep?" they ask, sleepily.

"I took a mental nap," you say, quietly.

"Try to get some sleep today."

"I am about to start the second load of laundry," you say, taking a sip of the cold brew you prepared before your mental nap.

"I don't know if coffee was the right move," they say as they head to the bathroom.

"I don't plan on taking a nap today, I'll just go to bed early."

"I will, too, I have to be up by 6 tomorrow," they say as they are heading to the kitchen. You follow, they grab their coat and walk back over to you.

"I never get to kiss you before work," you say, a smile on your face.

"I know. Sometimes you aren't even awake when I come home," they say as they kiss you.

"Have a good day at work dear, I love you," you say as they leave.