The Sleeping Fake-Out Move

I mentioned previously that my dad is a weirdo. Like totes weird. If you think randomly buying me a car after school or riding in a car for 18 hours without speaking are weird? Just wait for this shit.

My dad was convinced that we were going to die in our sleep when we were little. My dad has some weird anxiety issues and this stems from that. He would be so worried we were dead in our beds he'd get up in the middle in the night to come watch us sleep. On a good night he'd just stand in the doorway for a few minutes to see if our chests were rising and falling. He'd stand in the doorway because p.s. we were not allowed to sleep with our doors closed. A. He couldn't spy on us and B. If there was a fire in the house we might not hear the fire alarm and then if we didn't just stop breathing and die? We'd die in the fire. I am so serious about all of this. I know my mom and sisters will vouch for this being the 100% truth in the comments.

On a bad night? He would come stand next to our beds and move his face about 3 inches from ours so he could really tell if we were breathing. Yeah, it totally sounds creepy now, but at the time? It was totally normal to us. It was mostly just dorky and annoying and it never crossed my mind that it was weird.

The major problem of this whole staring in our face thing was that we were usually awake when he started the first round of sleep death stalking. As I mentioned previously, my sister and I shared a bed for about 7 years. So we'd usually be awake giggling and being wacky and then we'd hear dad coming and we'd have to pretend to be asleep or we'd get in trouble. So we'd close our eyes and pretend to be sleeping. On a good night? He'd stand there awkwardly for a few minutes and he'd go check on Hilary and then he'd go back to his part of the house. Then we'd giggle and talk some more.

On bad nights? He would come in and stare at our faces and because we were secretly both awake it would make us want to crack up so much. Again. we didn't think it was that weird, just kind of dorky and annoying and if we did start laughing we'd probably get yelled at. So we perfected the "I'm totally asleep" fake out move. After he stared at one of us for a minute we'd groan or yawn and roll over on our side. Since we were moving this was an indication that we were NOT dead and he'd go away and we could giggle some more. This was also a good safety move because sometimes we'd be cracking our eyes open and looking at him (but since it was dark and you know when you have your eyes barely open you can't tell they are open?) and sometimes when you stare at someone too much you just start to giggle hilariously. So at the moment when I thought I'd just crack up and die laughing I'd pull the fake out move. Because then I could groan but actually be giggling and then he'd go away and Leslie and I could giggle some more.

I know I've said giggle like 87 times so far, but really, we DO giggle that much. My whole childhood was giggling.

So there you have it. My dad = totally paranoid and weird. My sister and I = the best fake sleepers ever.