As long as I can remember, Mother has been a sleep walker. Some sleepwalkers are funny and some are sad and some are goofy but Mother is just scary. She always appears out of nowhere, maybe right in your face as you leave the bathroom or looming over you while you sleep and you open your eyes and she's staring at you with her giant, black, bulging, dead eyes and says something really weird, like, "You can take your god damned devil and leave my house!" or, "There's no time left Poppa.". When she's asleep she has a creepy, dry, gravelly voice. Sometimes, she walks out of her room holding a hand mirror or a lamp. Then she just stares at you and you don't know if she's going to ask you to begin the coronation or if she's going to just bash your brains in.

 Then, I try to talk her out, like if she babbles enough, it will all drain out of her and she'll yawn and go back to bed. Sometimes that works, but sometimes it makes her even crazier. Like she'll go to the refrigerator and start eating butter with a spatula, or drinking ketchup right out of the bottle. She once dumped the ice cubes into the garbage and filled the tray with vinegar and put it back in the freezer. Sometimes she will throw on a crazy outfit, like a boot and a sandal and a night gown and my coat and a rain hat and start to leave the trailer, babbling about the cows have to be picked up from school or something. Then I say, "Oh, yes, Mother, but first you need to leave a note for the Pastor", then I lead her back toward her room and sometimes that works and sometimes she will fly into a weird terror attack thing and I have to hold both of  her arms while her head spins around and she spews green vomit and talks in tongue.

You would think an old woman who can fill an ice cube tray with vinegar, in her sleep, could also sign a couple of blank checks but no, somehow that just won't happen and if she did, she would sign them "Queen Victoria" or something.

Once, I found her outside in the parking lot, talking to some kids and trying to get them to take a stack of pot holders and they were not sure what to do because as I say, she is creepy-deepy when she is sleep walking. Another spooky trick of hers is to be sitting in the dark on the telephone, having a conversation with Satan or maybe somebody who died twenty years ago and when I walk in, she'll say "oh, Dicky is here, yes, that's right, we have to stop now.." and then hang up the phone and just stare with her black doll eyes until I say "w-w-well, I-I'll go back to bed now (gulp!) and she just keeps staring silently.

The more she drinks, the less she sleepwalks, but if she doesn't pass out, she can get just as crazy as she gets more drunk. It's a very exacting science. When she's drunk, all her anger is directed right at me, but when she's sleep walking, it might be directed at King Ferdinand, who she thinks I am right then. So, it's kind of a question of what I'm in the mood for on any particular evening. I also thought maybe I could get her to wear those blindfold things people use to sleep in the daytime, you know how they are sort of soft or quilted and have sleeping eyes painted or sewn on them? Then she maybe couldn't get very far or even would stay in bed and think she was blind. In the meantime, I'm going to figure out that blank check idea, cuz I KNOW there is a way!

Also, I tried that thing where you stick a person's hand in a glass of water and they pee, but I don't think it worked.

I hope this helps others whose mother's are sleep walkers.