Richard Reiss

It was one of those nights. I couldn’t sleep. The big Coke I had with lunch — chock-full of caffeine — didn’t help. Neither did the small Coke I had with dinner. I thought that three hours on my bike and the exhaustion that eventually follows would be more than enough to overwhelm the caffeine surge that kept me awake in the wee hours of the night.

I was wrong: Wrong to get in bed; wrong to close my eyes; wrong to think that the warmth of the blanket over my body on a cool October night would help to put me to sleep; and so very wrong to drink all that soda earlier in the day.

I tried counting backward from 100. Nope. I tried reading. Nope. I shifted to poetry and recited in my head Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” the only poem I was ever forced to memorize in school and still remember today: “Half a league/half a league/Half a league onward/All in the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred.” Still awake. I gave it another shot. “Cannon to right of them/Cannon to left of them/Cannon behind them/Volleyed and thundered.” The thundering cannons were not helping. Nothing was working.

I began to roll my head from side to side, to the right and to the left, like a metronome, hoping that the steady tick, tick, tick of time against my pillow would eventually put me under. It was a losing battle. I gave up.

At 2 a.m. I rose from my bed to consider my after-hour options. There were only two that made sense: television or food. And then I realized there was a third: television and food, the double-whammy of “please Lord, help me sleep before I realize we are all meaningless bits of dust in the vast infinity of the universe.”

I began with food, convinced that the energy it takes to burn all those calories will surely wear me out and put me to sleep.

There were healthy snacks in the refrigerator: apples, oranges and yogurt are among my favorites. Yet healthy was not what I craved or needed. I needed carbohydrates and a lot of them. I needed sugar. If I was going on a 2 a.m. food binge, I needed to challenge my body to burn as many calories as possible in the shortest period of time. Think pizza. Think potato chips. Think the unopened box of Oreo cookies in my pantry, ready to be devoured and washed down by a glass or two of orange juice. That’s right, orange juice, not milk. It’s how I roll.

Little known fact: Orange juice contains 10 percent more calories than most varieties of soda. It’s true.

I’m lowering my expectations. I’d be happy with four hours of uninterrupted shuteye.

I turned on the television. It was my lucky night. “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” had just begun. The imperial walkers are on the move, about to blow-up the rebel base generator. Han Solo just rescued Luke Skywalker. Princess Leia is in a tither. Chewbacca is working his Wookie bottom off preparing the Millennium Falcon for flight so the good guys can escape the clutches of the evil Darth Vader. It will be two hours until the big reveal, when Vader says to Luke, “I am your father.” I want to stay up, but I know I shouldn’t.

The Oreos are yummy. The pizza is better. The chips are a perfect complement. The orange juice is sweet like Princess Leia, who seems to have a thing for the strapping Han Solo. Suddenly, it’s 1980, the year the movie came out, the year I graduated college, the year I got my first job. Hallelujah! I’m dreaming. Look at me: I’m thin, I’m happy, I’m young. Who would ever want to wake up from this dream? Dreaming and sleeping are the perfect combination.

I hear footsteps. I hear a voice. I open my eyes and experience the warmth of early morning sunshine.

“Again?” said my wife.

“Again,” I said.

“How was the pizza?” she asked.

“Not bad, for cold,” I answered.

My wife continued, “Maybe tomorrow, when I wake up, I’ll find you in bed beside me.”

“Hide the soda,” I said. “Anything is possible.”

I looked at the clock. I did a calculation. I’m not exactly sure when I fell asleep, but I think it was around the time the Millennium Falcon landed at Cloud City. Han Solo is greeted by his old friend, Lando Calrissian. He thinks he’s safe. Spoiler alert: He’s not.

But I am. I slept for nearly five hours. Not great, but enough to get me through the day.

Usually, when I wake up, I’m hungry. Not this time. This time, I’m feeling rather full, but I sure could go for another Coke.