Snug as a Bug in a Rug

Johnny will have 4 apples left if you take away 2. GO FUCK YOURSELF!

Unless one works in a bakery or a truck stop, a person usually has a good reason to be awake at 2:30 am. 2:30 am is the time you dejectedly crawl home from the bar after being turned down by the last bro standing. Occasionally, a bout of insomnia will render you unable to sleep and you just HAVE TO watch the last 30 minutes of Blue Hawaii before you close your eyes. Or 2:30 am will see you in the midst of a manic episode when you are up to your eyeballs in glitter and papier mache. These are all valid reasons to be awake when all reasonable creatures are asleep.

At 2:30 am on 04/27/2013, I was officially admitted into Allegheny General Hospital. Everything happened in a blur: people were tearing off my clothes, unhooking wires from my body, hooking wires back up to my body, moving my hydraulic bed up and down - it was almost like a rave, except it wasn't. Actually, I've never been to a rave, so maybe this is exactly what they are like. But that's not my point.

After all of my clothes were replaced with a general issue hospital gown and my wires and I were tucked safely under the covers, I fell asleep at the same second that my head hit the pillow. My hydraulic hospital bed was like a hand with fingers of pillows giving me the sweetest hugs until my eyes closed. (Reader's Poll: have I taken opiates today? Y/N. Text your answer to 8675309). In other words, the bed was really fucking comfortable. End of story.

I've slept in a lot of beds in my time (not like that, don't you dare get the wrong idea) and none have been quite as wonderful as this hospital bed that was my home for 4 nights. The queen sized bed at the four-star hotel in San Francisco, the king bed in Washington, DC  that was as long as it was wide, even my own beloved bed - none of them can hold a candle to the twin sized Stryker that felt like a garden of clouds.

When I say "a garden of clouds" I really am not exaggerating. If you were putting too much pressure on any one part of your body, the bed sensed it and would adjust itself to distribute your weight more evenly. It was like a bed from the future but I WAS SLEEPING IN IT.

After I was discharged home and rested my head in the bed that I used to love so, I couldn't help but be disappointed. Where were the hydraulics? Where was the magic that shifted my weight around? This experience has taught me an important lesson: If I need to plan a getaway to relax and forget about all of my problems, I will find a way to get admitted to Allegheny General again. It's like an all-inclusive cruise that is 100% covered by my insurance. The only difference is there is no booze but, as a very wise (and probably very drunk) man once said, "you can't always get what you want."

After the caterpillar put his hookah away for the evening, he tucked himself in for a  nice, deep slumber.