Every night my girlfriend wakes me up to tell the exact same joke.

I met Lisa through work and we hit it off right away. We had a great time on our first date and when I took her home that night she kissed me, told me she had a great time, and asked if I’d like to do it again tomorrow night. I said I’d like that and I could already tell this relationship was going to be something special. We only spent two nights apart in the 10 months we’ve been together now because from the moment we met, we just couldn’t be apart.<br><br>We live in a first floor apartment overlooking the ocean. Its a lovely view but we’re at the lowest end of what people are willing to pay for, so our apartment is tiny. Lisa and I sleep in a queen sized bed and that’s pretty much all the bedroom has room for. Neither of us has a problem with that, we’re the kind of people who like to be close.<br><br>So when I woke up to the sound of Lisa’s voice, I naturally reached out for her, expecting to find her right next to me. She wasn’t. I looked around groggily and saw her standing over me, with a very confused look on her face.<br><br>“What’s going on?” I asked her, more to confirm I wasn’t dreaming than anything else.<br><br>“Why are you sleeping in my bed?” She asked, her expression slowly turning into horror.<br><br>I sat up in bed. “What?” And that’s when I saw it. The room I was in wasn’t my bedroom, or at least not the one I shared with Lisa. The room I was in was decorated exactly the same, but everything about it felt off in some way. The room I shared with Lisa was our room, this was her room. I figured that out the moment she said those four words, and it terrified me beyond belief.<br><br>“Lisa, what’s going on?” I asked, trying to hide my fear.<br><br>“What’s going on is you’re asleep in my bed.” She said. “You need to go back to bed now because I have to work tomorrow and I don’t want to be kept up all night.” With that, she reached out and touched my shoulder.<br><br>I felt a jolt of pain in my neck and repeated the same steps I took the first time I was woken up. I sat up, I looked around, and when I saw Lisa, I asked; “What’s going on?” Now I was prepared for her reaction.<br><br>“Why are you sleeping in my bed?” Lisa asked, no longer scared or confused, just annoyed.<br><br>“Why do you keep saying that?” I asked, trying to conceal my frustration at being woken up and sent to sleep repeatedly.<br><br>“I’ve never seen you before in my life, so I don’t know why you’re sleeping in my bed.”<br><br>“I don’t even know you then?” I asked, trying to pretend I was just dreaming and not actually there.<br><br>“Not yet.” She said.<br><br>“Not yet?” I asked.<br><br>“Yes. We meet in a couple of weeks. Until then, go back to bed.”<br><br>She reached out, touched my shoulder, and I felt that same jolt of pain. When it passed I was back in bed, waking up for the fourth time in five minutes.<br><br>“Lisa, what the fuck is going on.” I asked, exasperated.<br><br>“What’s going on is you’re sleeping in my bed.”<br><br>“No, seriously, what the fuck is going on.”<br><br>“I don’t know you yet, so why are you in my bed?”<br><br>“*Are you* going to say anything new if I keep asking you?”<br><br>“When we talk in a couple of weeks.” She said.<br><br>“When we talk in a couple of weeks, are you going to tell me a joke?”<br><br>“Yes. I am.”<br><br>“Tell it to me now.”<br><br>“No. It won’t be funny if I do.”<br><br>“Please. Just tell me the joke.”<br><br>“OK. Here it is. It won’t be funny to you because we haven’t met yet, but I just shot my therapist with a crossbow. It’s all good though, because I have a quiver full of coping mechanisms.”<br><br>I stared at her in silence for a long, long time. Finally, I asked “Is that it?”<br><br>“Yes. How did you like it?”<br><br>“To be honest, it sucked. Just send me back to bed.”<br><br>“Fine.” Lisa said, reaching out to touch my shoulder.<br><br>When I woke up the next time, I figured there was no point trying to communicate with her, so I just asked for the joke.<br><br>“I just shot my therapist with a crossbow. It’s all good though, because I have a quiver full of coping mechanisms.” She said.<br><br>I thanked her and asked her to send me back to sleep. Lisa obliged, and I soon found myself waking up in our bed again. Lisa was sleeping next to me, and I was grateful that at least this time I wasn’t being tormented by future Lisa. I actually go back to sleep and slept until about 3 am when future Lisa woke me up again.<br><br>I kept trying to talk to her, to get her to reveal to me why this was happening. Every time she woke me up I tried to get her to say something different. Every time, I failed. No matter how hard I tried, all she would ever tell me was that she didn’t know me and we met in a couple of weeks.<br><br>I have no idea how many times I was woken up that night. Every time I was met by Lisa, angry that I was sleeping in her bed. Every time she told me the same joke. I got to the point where I memorized it. I got to the point where it scared me. I got to the point where it made me laugh.<br><br>Eventually it just made me angry. I was so tired, and every time she woke me up I felt like I was being tortured. Lisa would tell me the joke, I would laugh maniacally at her, and then she would send me back to sleep. Every time she touched my shoulder, I would feel like I was being electrocuted. I was dying for some sleep, but I knew that if I ever fell asleep, I would just wake up again.<br><br>At some point, it stopped being funny. At some point, it just became terrifying.<br><br>It was terrifying because at some point, it stopped. I eventually fell asleep and wasn’t woken up until our alarm started ringing. I stretched my arms and yawned, feeling like I’d been run over by a truck. I turned over to see Lisa lying in bed next to me, looking like she was ready to go.<br><br>“How did you sleep?” She asked.<br><br>“I didn’t.”<br><br>“Why not?”<br><br>“I don’t know. I just didn’t”<br><br>“Do you want to go back to sleep?”<br><br>“No. I have to go to work.”<br><br>Lisa nodded and we got out of bed. I was so tired, but there was nothing I could do. I had to go to work and earn a living. From the moment our alarm went off until the moment I left for work, Lisa didn’t say a word. I kept trying to talk to her, but she just ignored me. Every time I said something, she just looked at me silently, with a confused expression on her face.<br><br>I was so tired that as I walked out the door, I turned around and said, “I just shot my therapist with a crossbow. It’s all good though, because I have a quiver full of coping mechanisms.”<br><br>Lisa laughed.<br><br>“How did you know that joke?” She asked.<br><br>“When we met a couple of weeks ago, you told me.”<br><br>Lisa looked flabbergasted at me, but I didn’t care. I was just too tired to talk, so I went to work.<br><br>It’s been a week since that night, and I’m still trying to catch up on my sleep. As bad as it was, my experience could have been a whole lot worse. At least now, whenever I go to sleep, I don’t have to worry about being tortured by Lisa. You see, now at least I know her.