Plugged in and ready to fall

For as long as I can remember I've always been an insomniac. That's why I've always marveled at the people who say they never stay up any later than 10pm on a weeknight. I'd love to be able to climb into bed and pass out right after a particularly gripping episode of UPN's Girlfriends, but I don't think that'd be possible without a fistfull of sleeping pills, or a crowbar to the back of the head. I guess the fact that I've been working the second shift on every job I've had since 1997 certainly doesn't help matters.

Keeping the same hours as a heroin addict will make you do things at 4am that you wouldn't be caught dead doing at 4 in the afternoon. Like watching reruns of syndicated sitcoms so awful the local stations won’t even air them during the daytime. For a while when I was working the 2:30pm - 11pm shift at GE, I was hooked on that terrible Wayans Bros. show. The WB used to show two episodes back to back everyday at 5am, and since I didn't have anything better to do, I usually ended up dozing off while watching Shawn and Marlon conduct another class in "Shameless Mugging and Overracting 101."

The Wayans Bros is one of those shows that's so spectacularly bad, it's almost impossible for you to take your eyes off of it. We're talking pure, unadulterated trainwreck entertainment on par with The Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer. The writers routinely recycled the same generic sitcom plots that have been around since I Love Lucy. The only white character on the show was named "White Mike" (Seriously, how tasteless is that? Could you imagine the letters Hope & Faith would get if they added a character named "Black Carl?"). In a sick, perverted way I almost admire the Brothers Wayans for starring in and producing a sitcom so devoid of wit and originality that it bordered on the offensive.

Since the WB stopped airing the Wayans Bros, I’ve had to resort to the likes of Greta Van Susteren in order to catch some Z’s. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something about Susteren’s voice that causes me to immediately lose consciousness. If I had an audiotape of Greta Van Susteren reading the screenplay to “Meet Joe Black,” I think my insomnia problem would be solved. My only concern about Susteren’s voice being the last thing I hear before dozing off is that she might begin popping up in my dreams. Yikes. I couldn’t imagine anything more frightening than making out with Bonnie McFarlane underneath a strawberry Kool-Aid waterfall, only to open my eyes and find Susteren’s cold, dead eyes staring back at me. That’s Nightmare on Elm Street territory right there.