Sleep Talkin' Man (9 page)

You've got a nice face.
But your personality is one huge cock block.

The cake! It must be psychic.
It's using Jedi mind tricks to make itself irresistible to me. This is the cake I want.

Run along, run along. Next!
I love being a judge on Nobody
'
s Got Talent But Me.

Thank you for dinner.
Now if I ever say that something tastes like the anal evacuation of the recently deceased, I'll have a frame of reference.

Here I am: Captain Yeast Infection!
Making you uncomfortable no matter what you wear.

I bet you wish you could wear a onesie and look this good.

Next time I lend out my chest hair, it won
'
t be to a dick face like you. You
'
ve got it covered in lots of stuff.

It
'
ll take ages to clean up.
One hair at a time.
It'll be less painful to put my tongue through a cheese grater and lap up vinegar with the remnants that are left in my mouth, than to accept a dinner date with you.
I think you can take that as a ‘no.' Bye-bye.

So, you want a super massivo decaf low-fat stupido motherfuck cappu-fucking-ccino?
OK. Coming right up, cunt.

I swear, if I ever have to listen to you, I'll claw my ears off, and fill the bloody gaping holes with decaying afterbirth.

Do I love you a little or a lot? Hmmm?
No, it
'
s a lot. It
'
s your shithead inner self that only loves you a little.

Back off Robin.
Batman is my bitch now.
You're just a bitch's bitch, bitch.

You know what I
'
m gonna do?
I
'
m gonna make turd biscuits.
It
'
s like a shit sandwich, but for kids.

It's not so much a wave of indifference that washes over me when I look at you.
It's a fucking tsunami. Fuck off.

Nature pooing gives a whole new dimension to life. Mmmm. Now that
'
s freedom!

Stop hitting me! You're always hitting me!
Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be a boxer.
Postman, I'll be a postman, yes.
No one hits a postman … except if you're a boxer. Yeah, maybe I won't be a postman.
I'll just be a god. Much easier.

I love you. No, sorry, I missed some words out. I love it when the world shits on you. Yeah.
That
'
s the full sentence.

Jesus needs me.
If I don't believe, he don't exist.

I
'
d like to apologize on behalf of my mother.
She didn
'
t mean to call you an asshole … she meant to call you a cunt.

I want to see the piglets.
Let me see the piglets.
Why can't I see the piglets?
Ohhhh, piglets!
… Fuck they stink!
I want to go home now.
Stinky fucking piglets.

Yeah, you lay down,
I
'
ll get the tennis racket.

As we've already established, Sleep Talkin' Man is such a separate entity to Adam's waking self that Adam himself even refers to STM in the third person. And I'm not just talking about those glaringly obvious digressions in personality: Adam's good-natured humility to STM's egomania, Adam's generosity and kindness to STM's insulting irreverence. There is so much more evidence than these basic traits alone to suggest that a wholly separate being is unleashed when the lights go down.

For example, people always want to know whether Awake Adam is as hilarious as Sleep Talkin' Man. Well, Adam is a pretty witty guy, and even has the odd moment of comic genius. But does he have that pitch-perfect punch that STM manages with such frequency? Not even close. Adam couldn't come up with this stuff
awake, certainly not this much of it, if he tried. And, believe me, he does try. But where STM rarely delivers a clunker, Adam is never afraid to go for the eye-roll-inspiring, low-hanging fruit joke. You know, the kind of puns that only dads make. Here's a typical example, from one of our early morning conversations:

STM: 1, Awake Adam: 0.

But that's far from the end of it. There are all sorts of words and phrases that STM uses that would never come out of Adam's mouth. “Douchebag” is a distinctly American insult, never used by Adam in his waking life or, for that matter, by any self-respecting Brit. And, I'm sorry, but “hot dang” in a mildly posh English accent sounds ridiculous. Or how about this:

Huh?! Is STM moonlighting as a blaxploitation film actor?

Adam's nighttime natterings are peppered with all sorts of un-Adam-like, un-English stuff like this. And I know exactly what you're thinking: no, he didn't pick it up from me. Of course, like most Brits, Adam has seen his share of American movies. I guess STM's definition of cool is Quentin Tarantino.

More amazing, though, is the fact that STM sometimes comes out with words and phrases
with which Adam, to the best of his conscious knowledge, has no familiarity. One night early in his sleep talking history, Adam muttered,

When I told his what he'd said, he chuckled, and then said, “Umm, what's a 'doofus'?” And how about this:

Neither of us had any clue what he was talking about. After trying out a variety of spellings in Google, I eventually determined that an aye-aye is a type of lemur. Even after this discovery, Adam had no recollection of ever having heard of such an animal.

But it's not just the odd word or phrase that distinguishes STM from Adam. STM has even
been known to mutter in foreign languages that Adam does not speak. Here he is dabbling in French:

I actually posted this on the blog as “Touché (blah blah blah in french) …” because neither Adam nor I, listening to the recording, had any clue what he had said. Luckily, a few readers e-mailed us with the proper transcription and translation, “my little brother.”

Now, how about a bit of German:

At least in this case, I knew enough of the language to make sense of it myself. And of course that last word, bellowed out with great enthusiasm, is pure English
/
American slang (and, incidentally,
not an ingredient typically used in German cooking).

All that said, I certainly don't believe that STM has access to knowledge that is completely alien to Adam. Sleep Talkin' Man can only be a figment of Adam's subconscious, so all this stuff must be in there somewhere. Some psychologists believe that a function of the subconscious is to sort relevant information from irrelevant, so that the conscious mind knows what to focus on. Perhaps this is all random mental detritus that just got caught in Adam's subliminal filter, only to emerge at night. It's either that, or STM is, after all, a totally separate entity, a night spirit who roams the earth—fleeing rare lemurs, dueling French swordsmen, swearing like a longshoreman—periodically possessing Adam's sleeping body only to share his experiences with the living. I'd go with theory number one.

Hey, don
'
t creep up on me like that!
Superheroes are wound super-tight.

I
'
m losing faith in humanity, one faked orgasm at a time.

You never take my balloons out for a walk.
They need some fresh fucking air, take ‘em outside this time. And on a long walk. They like the sun. Don't take them to the park. I don't want them on the swings, they're too little for swings. And the roundabout will make them sick, just take them on a nice walk. See the duckies.
Bye balloons!

You know, it's a human race. And you lost.

Oh shit. It's the munchkin sing-song.
Kick ‘em in their mouths, the tuneless fucking freaks.

Butt cheeks ahoy!
There she blows!

Mine's a potato martini.
Serve it cold.

Well, if I
'
m the douchebag, you
'
re the contents, Titfuck!

I got my big meeting today.
The one where I stand up and say, ‘fuck this shit, I quit!'

God, you whine like whale song.
But a lot less eerie and beautiful and more, well, fucking annoying.

Elvis is dead. He is dead, I tell you!
Buried and oh, just a little bit smelly.
Bad burger muncher.

Whoever invented calories is gonna get their face fucked with ice cream cake.

Of course it's your tomato.
You can do what the fuck you want with it.
Except have sex with it.

Fucking unicorns.
'
Oh, I
'
ve got a horn!
'
So fucking obnoxious.
You
'
re just a horse with a party hat, dickhead.

My butt cheeks are for squeezing.
Go on, take a handful. Take two.

Oh, great. Now you're older than Jesus.
Your one great achievement in your sad fuck of a life.

I'm sorry, but not knowing what a horcrux is is a deal breaker to me.
Deal with it, muggle-fucker.

It's a turd. I wrapped it, and put a ribbon on it, and I'm giving it to you. See? I give a shit.

I hate bubbles. Oh sure, they
'
re nice and pretty to begin with, but then the rainbow colors just go POP! Instant downer. Motherfucking bubbles.

I wanna be a bumble bee. But not a slutty bumble bee, going around, pollinating every flower it sees. I'm a one flower kind of bee. A monogamous bee.
Monogabee! That's me.

Cream cheese to the moon, motherfucker!

Oh, I've got the tears of a hippo ballerina on my arm. Don't touch. Don't touch!
Sparkly. Oh so delicate and sparkly!
Oh, sparkly.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the event of sudden change of pressure in the cabin, you may wish to scream into your masks.
SCREAM BITCHES.

Red panda … blue panda … blue panda … Green! Panda, stop changing colors.
Someone go and get Chameleon and find out what the hell's happened here.

Of course the mermen are all pissed off.
The mermaids are all bitches. And they can't sing…. How do they have sex?

Mary had a little lamb. I ate it. Mary's sad.
Stupid whiny vegetarian!

Don't stop me. I need to put this on my Santa list before I forget. It's my Santa list! You know, an Xbox 360 for me … and a cock slap for you. I'm so excited.

Seriously, there
'
s nothing like a good ass-licking before you go to sleep.

Ooooh!
I'm gonna play chubby bunny until I puke.
Yeeaaahhhh.

I
'
ll buy the cow and put it on the roof.
High-rise farming is gonna be MY invention.

Yeah, my balloons! Watch them dancing in the sun. Aren't they—Fuck!
Fuck, you little fuck! Your kid's a tossbag for popping them. Tossbag kid.