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Where the Hell Is the ‘Order’?

On Thursday night, I got home around twelve thirty. So yes, technically I didn’t get home on Thursday night at all; I got home on Friday morning. Yes, you’re very clever. Now stop interrupting, Poindexter — I’m telling a story here.

When I arrived at home, I was pleasantly surprised to find my wife on the couch, still awake. Normally, she’s out cold by eleven thirty, on the couch, futon, or bed. By twelve, she’s usually drooling. And by twelve thirty, she’s often dreaming, and talking some sort of nonsense in her sleep. She hates that, because I get to tell her about it later. It’s the one time of day when she makes as little sense as I do. I dig that.

So, she was up, and watching Law and Order: CI. We watch a lot of Law and Order around the house — and honestly, who doesn’t? Not because it’s good, particularly. It’s just that there are fifteen different flavors now, and it’s on nineteen hours every day on thirty-six different stations. How the hell can you avoid it? What are we going to do — watch Friends reruns? I don’t think so.

I have this theory, though. I think my wife has a Pavlovian response to Law and Order. She makes it through the ‘law’ part okay, but ‘order’ is like a vatful of sleeping pills. As soon as the D.A.s step in, she zonks. I’ve always wondered whether she has horrible nightmares, because as far as she knows, none of the felons and murderers on those shows ever get brought to justice. That’s gotta suck.

(And yeah, her induced narcolepsy isn’t in response to food, so it’s not technically a Pavlovian response, strictly speaking. But it still involves drooling, so it counts. That’s my story, anyway.)

So, I was quite surprised to find her still conscious well after midnight. Just then, I looked at the screen and saw Vincent D’Onofrio and Chris Noth onscreen at once. So I asked:

“Oh, is this that two-hour special where they have both CI teams on the case?”

My wife gave me a pained, desperate look, barely able to lift her tuckered head off the couch cushion.

“Is THAT why it’s taking so long?”

Poor girl. She never realized it was a double episode, and had been lying there for an hour and a half, waiting for ‘law’ to give way to ‘order’, so she could get some sleep. A couple of minutes later, one of the D.A.s showed up, so she was off to dreamland, only an hour and change later than normal. Man, it must be a burden to be a slave to a trigger like that.

On a completely unrelated note, now that I’ve finished my post for the night, I’m tired and sleepy-eyed. Ring the bell, doc; I’m off to bed. G’night.