My day started with a nightmare and a strange noise at 1:30am. The dream terrified me, the noise that I woke up to paralysed me for about five minutes. It sounded similar to my tormentor, Giggling Bob, only closer: Giggling Bob is in a box on the opposite side of the house to my bedroom. Other than not being quite the same noise, it wasn’t Bob’s usual time of 3:14. The conclusion can only be that Bob has invited a friend into the house.

So after five terror-stricken minutes, I picked up my cell phone and called my best friend John, who luckily is working nights this weekend. I wouldn’t have called him otherwise, knowing how precious sleep is. Being the nice guy he is, he talked me down from my panic to the level where I was able to put on pants and get up to check that all the doors were locked. They weren’t – the garage door was open. But after a quick trip around the house to make sure the kids and I were alone (with John still on the line) I went back to bed and, after a full hour of being on the phone, went back to sleep.

To properly explain the next part of my story, I must back up a bit. Last week I scratched the roof of my mouth. It’s been so resistant to healing, and so painful, that I decided to fast today to give it a break. Knowing that the kids would be going with their dad tonight, I wasn’t worried about being hungry well into the evening – I could go to bed early. I’m exhausted anyway from my adventure of the wee hours of the morning. Two proverbial birds with one stone and all that.

Can you hear the scratching of a record needle? Of course you can. My ex texted me to say he wasn’t coming.

In the meantime, I had a doctor’s appointment for my shoulder (which has been hurting since January) so I thought, why not ask him to take his handy-dandy light thingie and shine it in my mouth to see what’s wrong in there. One prescription later, I’m now the proud owner of something I didn’t know existed – steroid-laced dental paste.

Dry your palette with a paper towel, the pharmacist said, (eww) and then put the paste on your thumb and spread it on the roof of your mouth. But don’t try to rub it in. It has to stay there. Just a layer of paste for at least half an hour. And don’t lick it.

….

Do you have any idea what happens to your mouth when you can’t allow your tongue to touch the roof, and you’re thinking about it? You drool. Try to swallow without touching your tongue to your palette. Go ahead. Do it now.

See what I mean? Now sit like that for half an hour.

Now it’s 10:40pm on the same day I woke up terrified. I’m exhausted, waiting for Alex’s feeding pump to finish doing its thing, I’m starving, I’m drooling, and I still haven’t figured out if I have yet another possessed toy in the house to terrorize me in the middle of the night.

If I do find the toy though… it’s going home in my ex’s trunk the next time he picks up the kids. WITH Giggling Bob.