I’ve actually considered breaking and entering a Walgreens. I know that sounds like a serious crime, but I only want to steal two Lunestas. My wife and I recently returned from a trip not realizing we were out of this magical pill. A bad night’s sleep without Lunesta was going to undo our entire vacation. I seriously considered committing theft and possibly armed robbery. That is, if the occasion called for it.

So, when did I stop sleeping? I used to be so good at this. In fact, I think I may have been one of the best in the world. I slept so much through my teen years that my parents accused me of being on drugs. I just loved sleeping. Now I’m lucky if I get two hours of uninterrupted slumber; joyous if I get anywhere near six hours. Sadly, I know I’m not alone.

To attack the problem, I started out with simple remedies like a sound machine and making the entire room pitch black. We even tried putting electrical tape over the time on the cable box. Throw in a little Chamomile tea and I should be sleeping like a baby, right? Nope.

From there I graduated to melatonin and counting backwards from 300 by threes. After that we sprung for the incredibly expensive high thread-count sheets. Apparently, they sleep well in Egypt because all of the sheets are from there. We never thought we’d go so far as to buy the ridiculously expensive Tempurpedic mattress and NASA pillows, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Evidently, outer space is the place to get a great night’s sleep because any good sleeping device comes from NASA.

We then graduated to a cabinet full of supplements and a sleep study. Sleep studies are interesting. You go in, they wire you from head to toe, tell you you’re going to be watched by some creepy man all night, then you’re supposed to fall deep asleep. Simple, right? Well, the truth is, I’ve never met anyone who got any helpful data from a sleep study. When it’s all over, the scientists basically confirm that you’re an insomniac.

The solution! Fix it the American way. Go to a highly educated medical professional and get a prescription. The doctor did offer one alternative before putting me on sleep meds indefinitely. His advice was this: “Change your lifestyle and eliminate anything that causes stress.” I thought about this for a second, wondering what he meant. My response was: “You mean quit my job that gets me up at 4 a.m. every day, give up providing for a wife and child, quit watching my investments sink into oblivion and stop worrying about terrorists attacks or who’s going to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol?” Just fill out the prescription, please.

As for breaking into Walgreens that night, I got cold feet and suffered through the night instead of resulting to criminality. To solve this problem in the future, my wife and I have made a map to two secret Lunestas buried in our back yard. Just in case of emergency.