I'll sleep when I'm dead

There was a time I wouldn't hit sack before midnight.

Sleep? What's that? I'm a college student. I'll catch a few Zs when I croak. That's what I'd tell folks. Give it some time, they'd say, you'll be singing a different tune in 10 years. Go eat a prune, I'd tell them.

I lived in Las Vegas for four years, and attended UNLV (that would be the No. 25-ranked Runnin' Rebels, mind you - Go Rebs!). But because I was so damned adorable as a kid, and that adorableness extedned into my 20s and now my 30s, my parental units would come to visit once a week. They couldn't live without their Mikey. Of course, I thought it was suspicious when they would call me from the road and tell me to meet them on the lawn whereupon they'd chuck both suitcases at me and peel off for the casinos. They would show up at dinner time, broke, drunk and asking if they could borrow 50 bones to get home. That's how my units roll. (If you're thinking about moving to Las Vegas, don't, unless you enjoy hobos disguised as family members, friends and assorted drunks you never met before crashing your apartment which is no bigger than a water heater box).

Because I'm a good son, I'd take them out to dinner - nevermind that they blew their wad drinking $1 margaritas at Palace Station and playing 50-cent Keno - and invariably Dear Ma would ask, "Where do you find time to sleep if you're always studying?"

Perception and reality are often at odds, aren't they? Why destroy the woman's hopes of her only son becoming a successful executive assistant (us Melissas dream high, don't we?) instead of a slack-jawed journalist. Obviously, the jig was up as I'm the latter, not the former.

"Dear Ma, don't worry about me. I study hard so that one day you can drink all the Franzia White Zinfadel you like and play $1 Keno until the tip of your index finger is permanently set at a 90-degree angle from pushing the numbers on the screen."

"Ah, my dear angel."

While Dear Ma and the Old Man thought I was hard at work, pouring over text books thicker than my weiner (I know, Wife, that ain't saying much), the truth was there were no books to pour over where I went, unless you count the drink menus, the upcoming events schedule and the UNLV coeds conveyor-belting their way through the Crown and Anchor Pub. Vegas doesn't have a last call, so I fed the drink factory until 1 turned to 2 and approached 3 on many a weeknight. That would leave enough time for Mr. Sandman - or was it Mr. Foster's Lager? - to kick me into bed for a 3-hour catnap before the alarm would signal my next 20-hour day.

That was college life for me. Three or four times a week; soak, wash, rinse, repeat. Not in bed by 12 and to hell with three square meals. I'll sleep plenty when I die.

Well, those a-holes who said I'd be singing a different tune in 10 years were goddamn right. Going to bed at midnight is a dream now. I have to guzzle an industrial-size, super-strengthed pot of coffee just to make it past the bewitching hour. And it better be that Dark Arabian coffee shit, don't come at me with your pansy-ass Columbian crap, that's for folks who can't stay awake past 10.

Here's what I'm talking about. ABC, because they must hate my guts, pushed one of my favorite TV shows - "Lost" - back to 9 p.m. my time. We have a DVR, because Wife loves me plus she's a "Jag" addict (DVR might not be the right term, it's more a JagR), but a lot of good the contraption does when every yahoo at work is talking about how Sawyer and Sayid had a little Brokeback Island encounter at the end of the last episode (if you're a regular viewer who hasn't seen Wednesday's show, you'll be in for a treat - "I can't quit you Sayid!").

So thanks to the jerk offs at ABC, I had to take a nap Wednesday, after work, so I could keep the peepers open until 10. Mid-afternoon naps have become part of the post-work prison habit, sometimes after the nine minutes of hell at the gym and especially on the weekend, and while it's only 30 minutes (never more, never less; my body is precision instrument and knows when the Sandman's time is up) its enough to boost my energy level to 10 - and dare I dream - maybe 10:30 p.m.

But, really, what's next? Early bird dinner specials at 3? Am I at the age where I must sprinkle Metamucil on my Cheerios?

Wife is doing her part now. She's on this high-fiber diet, which means I'm on a high-fiber diet, and we've been scarfing down dinner earlier and earlier each day. I really think she's prepping me for old age. And scary enough, I'm almost there. If you call my house at 8, I'm liable to yell, "What kind of animal calls at this hour?" I don't go out after dark, and my bladder is about as strong as a piece of soaked rice paper.

The Old Man could have warned me, or Dear Ma could have clued me in that all those long nights of studying would catch up with me, and 10 years later I'd be crawling into bed at 9 without enough energy to scratch my nuts. Thanks Units. No more Franzia White Zinfadel boxes for you.