The writer’s brain comes alive at midnight

           Why is it that every night, as I am about to go to bed, knowing I should be going to bed, an idea shows up in my head and I have to sit back down at the computer and type it in because I can’t trust myself to remember it till morning — even if I leave myself a note. I’ll set down whatever streams out before I’m ready to call it quits, then leave myself a Post-it note to remind myself to look at what I wrote when I wake up, to see if it makes sense.

           It doesn’t always, but I won’t delete it because more often than not it can be fixed. And if it can’t right at that moment, I save it for another day. In the case of this particular work of literary art, all I managed the following morning was to finish the first sentence, and then I sat there pondering what else to write.

           As I pondered, I recalled some of the things I’ve written about in the past. I considered many of them to be in the public interest. Once, for instance, I raised several important questions about auto racing in a column called “Southern Culture on the Skids.” To this day no one has ever answered them, although NASCAR fans stopped talking to me.

           In another, I examined in depth a phenomenon known as “dust” in a column called “Dust: A Fact of Life,” and concluded that we just had to get used to it. In a similar vein, I took a look at horizontal surfaces in the home and how they often are “Junk Magnets.” We often rue how these surfaces become cluttered, but where would we put our junk otherwise?

           Columns often provide me with the opportunity to commiserate with my fellow consumers. Anyone as frustrated by useless cents-off coupons as I am probably appreciated “Very Helpful, Thank You,” and anyone who’s ever lost a sock in the drier found “Black Holes, Bermuda Triangles, Missing Socks” informative. And if you’re as overwhelmed by the supermarket cereal aisle as I am, you would have nodded knowingly at “Cereal Killers.”

           I’m not above uncontroversial political commentary either. “From the Surplus Screwy Ideas File” was a prime example of that. Mostly I stay away from politics though because I don’t feel like getting hate mail.

           As I mentioned earlier, I don’t always use everything inspired by a post-midnight idea. I scrapped the first version of this literary masterpiece after Clarke told me it wasn’t funny. However, the first paragraph remains intact, which is a relief because it cost me a half-hour’s sleep.