I thought I had plenty of time tonight. I was gonna handle a couple of things, bang out the Monday night post, and go watch the rest of 2012, which I still haven’t managed to get through without falling asleep. Tonight I wasn’t going to be staring at the evil little clock in the corner of my screen as it tick-tick-ticked its way to midnight. No sir, not tonight.

But suddenly, I’m doing exactly that, and wondering who the hell keeps stealing all my evenings. It’s like I’ve got some personal damned time burglar, and who’re gonna call about that?

The evening started well enough, with hours of promise. The kids were tucked in by 9, and, knock on wood or whatever laminated brownish-colored surface you have handy, our generally don’t exhibit the problematic lights-out behaviors that cause hypertension for parents the world over. I imagine that’s largely due to the fact that I have, in the past, ruled over the nightly rituals in such a manner that the Puddinette and I have both made reference to me being the Bedtime Gestapo. That’s not to say, of course, that I make children suspected of thought crimes disappear in the middle of the night or anything, but whenever a bedtime insurrection gains momentum, they would find me suddenly on hand, appearing swiftly, ghost-like, to threaten harsh and terrible punishments.

“Want to keep the stuffed animals?”, I’d say, menacingly, “then lay down and go to sleep.”

“If I hear one more peep out of this room (thanks Mom!), tomorrow night you’ll go to bed when the baby does, and without the hall light.” That one was always very effective.

I never much liked having to be the bedtime secret police, so I’m thankful that I rarely have need to wheel it out nowadays. The same goes for The Voice, aka The Voice of Doom, which has been known to startle not just small children and pets into obedience, but also by-standing sisters-in-law who have unluckily found themselves present for it’s use (directed at pets, of course, never the sister-in-law).

Anyway, so the kids were in the bed on time, and I was happily looking forward to enjoying an evening with a DVD, following a handful of minor tasks that shouldn’t really take much time. Two hours later, I began crafting the nightly post, and I’m not exactly sure how the preceding time evaporated. I did a little work, I played a couple of words in Facebook Scrabble (yes, I welcome challenges, friends), and I paid a handful of bills.

Suddenly it’s 11:30 PM.

There’s always the possibility that I was abducted by aliens and those hours have been slipped out of my memory the way the high school girls on those terrible shows lose her clothes and self-respect. Seems unlikely, though, that The Puddinette might overlook my absence in the middle of the evening. Also, the fancy spaceship lights, and the little gray men might be memorable for her if they stopped to pick me up. Further, I have a very hard time believing she couldn’t track me down hanging with my new alien buds in their interstellar flying crib.

So I guess we can rule that out.

I also thought maybe I could just be, you know, blacking out or something. But I’ve never hit the acid, I’m not currently throwing back any beers, and I’ve haven’t woken up suddenly in puddle of my own drool since high school. Sure, I might occasionally rock the Dance of the Drowsing Head Nods when waiting in a doctor’s office, but that’s usually at 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, aka siesta time! At 10:30 PM, I’m in my biorhythmic prime.

I suppose I’ll just have to suck it up and admit to myself that paying bills takes a stupid amount of time, even if you aren’t writing out the damn checks by hand. And maybe, just maybe, I might get sidetracked every once in a great while by reading an article about some new fancy piece of technology or that new ground-breaking videogame.

It’s a shame I’ll never find the time to play that videogame because my nights seem to disappear into the ether; such a vicious, vicious cycle.

pud’n