Playing Games In Bed Has Its Benefits

You won’t believe what happened to me now. I got such a fright last night, I nearly had a heart attack. When it was all over, I thought to myself, I must share this with others.

Listen to anyone who gives advice for a better night sleep and they’ll tell you not to play games in bed (internet games that is). They’ll claim that the screen and the excitement delays falling asleep. All I can say is, if you want to play games, play games. I did last night. After climbing into bed, I propped two pillows behind my back, took my phone and prepared for half an hour or so playing. I do this every night.

Does this affect my sleep? Not at all. Usually, I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow. Occasionally, I do toss and turn and can’t seem to catch those zzz's, but that’s more due to physical pain, frustration or even anger over something I’ve seen online, or inspiration for articles that bounce around in my head.

Anyway, last night I was happily playing a card game when suddenly, through my eyelashes, I noticed something. When I looked up I saw that it was a medium-sized spider coming down from the ceiling on an almost invisible thread.

Good Lord, with considerable speed I scrambled out bed all the while calling for my son, “Dieter … Dieter … DIETER!!!”

Dieter roused from a deep sleep responded with ‘Huh, mom, did you call?’

‘Yes. Come here.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, now, of course now.’

I could hear him pulling on jeans and moments later he stood in the doorway to my bedroom. ‘What?’

‘Look, a spider,” I said, pointing in the general direction of my bed. ‘Go get a shoe.’

Even though there are plenty of shoes in my room, Dieter went to go get one of his own.

The spider, perhaps knowing of his imminent demise, didn’t waste time. While it had almost reached the duvet on my bed, it quickly clambered back up again on his thread. So fast was it that by the time Dieter came back with a shoe, the spider was back on the ceiling.

‘Make sure you got it,’ I instructed.

While my son climbed on the bed and on wobbly legs tried to find his balance, the spider made a run for it and legged it to another part of the ceiling.

Great, now we couldn’t get to it. ‘I’ll get a chair,’ I said.

While I dragged a chair into the bedroom, the spider probably kept one or two of its eight eyes on us. As soon as Dieter, armed with a size 11 sneaker had climbed on the chair, the spider ran back to a space above my bed. It was playing a game with us.

Dieter climbed off the chair and back on my bed, aimed the shoe at the spider and … true to male form, he missed and the spider fell on the duvet. This had me screaming in panic. If the spider couldn’t be found, I could never sleep in this bed again.

Fortunately, the nasty creature was spotted and Dieter proceeded to knock the spider over the head again and again until it was dead and I said, “Thank God I was still awake.”

Can you imagine if I had gone to sleep without playing a few games on my phone? That monster would have come down from the ceiling and landed on my bed, free to wander around. It might even have made a nest under my mattress and produced little baby spiders. Eeeeewwwww!!!!!