My daughter is going to call me “Dadth Vader.” I know this now. For she will grow up with a father who is part man, and part machine – or at least this is what I like to think. (The picture above just came in from a fax machine from the future.)

I just found out I have sleep apnea, you see. Henceforth, then, I shall be hooked up to a CPAP machine when I sleep so I can breathe air like normal human beings do whenever the Sandman illegally enters their homes and puts them to sleep. I don’t know what I’ve been doing instead of breathing. Playing a mean game of somnambulistic badminton with myself in the front yard, no doubt. No wonder I’m tired.

At first, I was discouraged. I felt like a failure at sleeping, despite logging nearly 33 years of practice at it. When you practice something for 33 years and still can’t do it properly though, I guess it is time to call in the professionals.

So when my wife ushers baby Evie into the world sometime in the next month, I will become Dadth Vader. If she sees me when I sleep, she will see the mouthpiece I already wear for my nocturnal teeth clenching – my NTI device that treats bruxism – and then she will see my CPAP machine, keeping me alive and well. She will know I am more than a mere man. When she sees The Empire Strikes Back and Darth Vader says, “I am your father” to Luke, she’ll say, “No, he my daddy. No Luke daddy. My daddy.” 

I know. This kid is cosmically doomed.

I want to see the humor in this immediately rather than wallow in the knowledge that I am keeping company with an intergalactic villain of epic proportions. It would be easy for me to feel sorry for myself, after all, as I already have OCD and take medication for that. But now that I think about it, having OCD and using a CPAP machine will make me the King of Acronyms. I will be the keeper of letters, and if you want to create an acronym, you will have to grovel at my feet.

My test indicated that I snore an average of 211 times per hour. I am a snoring engine, apparently. Put wheels on me, and I will run laps around the room. Slap a Mountain Dew sponsorship logo on my belly. I am nighttime NASCAR. My poor wife.

So with my birthday on Monday, at the slightly overripe age of 33, I will enter a new phase of life in which I will willingly become a cyborg. Since my dad is such a sci-fi junkie, I suspect he will want to sit at my bedside with a bowl of popcorn at night just to see what kind of interstellar adventures I will have as a member of the Borg collective (and yes, I am aware that I am a mixing my Star Wars and Star Trek metaphors). 

Here’s to harmony between man and machine. I can only hope my CPAP device will not come to life and take over like the machines do in the Terminator films. Come to think of it, since it will be helping me breathe, won’t I technically be permitting it to take over already?

Soundtrack of the Day: Guided By Voices “I’ll Replace You With Machines” (from their Earthquake Glue LP)