Counting Sheep

Last night I was having trouble getting to sleep, so out of desperation I closed my eyes and tried "counting sheep." I don't think I've ever tried this technique before in my life...and now I know why. My first problem...why sheep? Why not count dogs or alligators...or Supermodels? Yeah, I could get used to that, there goes Claudia Schiffer (that's 1) there goes Gisele (that's 2), there goes Adriana Lima (that's 3)...etc...etc.

Anyway, back to this whole sheep thing. When I think about counting sheep, I think about all the cartoons I've seen over the years that have the characters "counting sheep" as they try to fall asleep. In cartoons, the sheep are always hopping over a fence as they are being counted. Is this a common activity for sheep? Where are these sheep going? When someone is behaving sheepishly are they jumping back and forth over fences?

As I was trying to fall asleep I found myself getting increasingly stressed out by all these sheep jumping the fence. I could not just simply lay there and count them as they escaped. I kept wanting to stop counting and find someone to go get all the sheep back. But maybe I'm just weird that way. Not to mention that for the life of me I couldn't visualize a real sheep...all I could see in my head was cartoon sheep. In fact, at one point I was visualizing a giant cartoon rooster laying in the grass counting cartoon sheep as he tried to fall asleep.

Needless to say, I gave up on counting sheep and turned on the TV instead. So my advice is that unless you are a shepherd, don't try counting sheep to fall asleep...it doesn't work. Although, if you are a shepherd, don't do it either because it is your job to count sheep when you are awake and I can't condone sleeping on the job.