I Hear the Secrets That You Keep (When You're Talking in Your Sleep)

My dad has the talent of watching television with his eyes
closed. It is hard to watch The Bridge this way, because the
plot gets rather complicated at times.

On Saturday night I went over to my parents’ house to hang out and engage in one of my favorite pastimes: catching up on the shows my mom has DVR'd for us over the past few weeks. Now, sometimes I do this at my own house, but it is often more fun to do it at my parents. They have lots of animals to pet, they always have Diet Cranberry Raspberry Snapple at the ready, and the company is good. On Saturday my mom and I had just watched an episode of Rizzoli and Isles when my mom decided we should watch an episode of The Bridge next.

If you are not familiar with The Bridge, it started in July on FX, and the premise is that there is a serial killer operating in both El Paso and Juarez, Mexico, and the police are hunting him down. The police in both El Paso and Juarez are on it. I enjoy the show because it is interesting, and so much sleazy stuff is always going on that there is a lot of intrigue. Also, the actor who places the police officer from Juarez, Demian Bichir, is pretty cute, even if he is somewhat outside of what might be considered age appropriate for me.

My mom invited my dad to come in and watch The Bridge with us. My dad doesn't watch a whole lot of tv, but he has managed to keep up with The Bridge, and we always like it when my dad wants to watch something with us. My dad, however, often becomes narcoleptic in the presence of television shows, and will usually fall asleep within the first five minutes of whatever we are watching. He agreed to come watch the Bridge with us, and took a place on the couch next to my mom. I was on the other couch knitting while the show was on.

Now, before I go any further, I need to give you some background on my dad. My dad's company is a construction product and tool supplier, and my dad goes into work every morning by 6 AM, and usually gets home around 5 PM. He is often pretty tired when he gets home from work, and, ever since I was a kid, him falling asleep on the couch in the evening has been a common occurrence. One great thing about my dad falling asleep like that is that he sometimes talks in his sleep, which is entertaining for the rest of us.

While my dad is sleeping, he must be working in his dreams. There have been a number of times, for example, when my mom or I have tried to ask him something and he has responded by doing inventory with a man named Jimmy who he works with. "Dad, how late are you getting home tomorrow night?" I might ask, and Dad would respond, "Jimmy, how many of that number 47 eyebolt have we got?" Sometimes, if you ask my dad questions while he is sleeping, he will respond rather nonsensically, and it ends up sounding like a game of Mad Libs in which the player did not see the paragraph before coming up with the words to fill in. All in all, it is pretty amusing.

So, on Saturday night, my parents and I gathered to watch The Bridge, and within about five minutes of the show starting, like clockwork, my dad had fallen asleep. Some of the dialogue in the show is between characters who are Spanish speakers, and this dialogue occurs in Spanish with English subtitles, which I appreciate. It is not very believable that two men in Juarez just happen to converse in flawless English without a hint of an accent, and I enjoy the touch of realism allowing the characters to talk as they would in real life adds. When we watch The Bridge and I am knitting, my mom will read the subtitles to me because it is hard to knit and read subtitles at the same time.

On Saturday, one of the characters was having a dream, and in the dream he was talking to a woman who was offering him a glass of milk. As is typically the case in dreams, what the woman said next was kind of weird, but, hey, I can't say my dreams make any sense either. My mom read the subtitle out loud to me. "Are you thirsty my king?" she read, as onscreen the woman proffered a glass of milk to the man. At that moment, my dad, who had nodded off in a sitting position, turned to her and said, "No thanks, I'll get something in a minute," and then he went back to sleep.

Forget this king--Long live my dad!

My mom and I hooted and hollered like we were watching the Comedy Central Roast of Betty White or something. At that moment, my dad's sleep-addled response was truly the best thing that had ever happened up until that moment in my life. Later, my mom looked down the hall to see that my dad had left several lights on in the back part of the house. "It looks like your dad left all the lights on," she said. "I guess my king needed a path lighted for him back there." My mom and I now refer to my dad as "My King," or, alternatively, as "The King," or just "King." I am not sure how much mileage we are going to get out of this nickname before it grows old and tired, but for now we are amusing ourselves with it. Long live the king!

The Bridge image courtesy of https://thetinyprotagonist.wordpress.com

Burger King King image courtesy of http://kirbymuseum.org/