Eating Leads to Sleeping (Tryptophan)

One time, I ate a turkey dinner. It was fantastically satisfying. When I finished the meal, I pushed my chair back from the table and stood up . . .

“I feel so pleasantly heavy and tired,” I say to myself. 

By this time, I am snoring. — I am dreaming of the T-Day superhero Candied Yam Man. He has gigantic hands made of candied yams, and he’s chasing me all through the house. Now Candied Yam Man has seized me and begun to commit battery upon my person. His weapon of choice is a sweet potato. 

At this point, I awake from my prophetic vision. My uncle Marvin approaches from the living room and remarks: 

“That was a bad dream you were having. Did someone lace your beer with psychedelics?” 

“No,” I say, “I just ate too much turkey.” 

Then I fall right back asleep and dream of lambs leaping over a fence. Now one poor lambkin starts baaing in a terrified fashion, and when I look to see what the matter is, behold: here’s Candied Yam Man standing over the lamb with his foot raised, ready to step upon the creature.

“Candied Yam Man, stop!” I shout in my dream. “These lambs are only trying to help me sleep off my meal. Do not crush them beneath your boot.” 

Then Candied Yam Man smiled and nodded nicely. He removed his leg and put his foot back down on the ground without harming the lamb, whose name-tag read “Jesus”. Then Candied Yam Man sang me a lullaby. Its lyrics went like so: 

I’m gonna dupe you hard — oh, I’m gonna dupe you so hard, sleepy boy. 

In conclusion, I totally fell for his yammish charm: Now I’M the one being stepped on.

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MORAL: Eating turkeys makes you drowsy, which causes you to let down your guard and become vulnerable to attacks by heavy machinery over the holiday season. Most likely, this is due to the fact that your turkey dinner was dipped in the chemical tryptophan. That’s why I fell asleep so many times in the story above, and that’s also why I had such a dream come true. So remember this helpful jingle, next time you doze off: 

Eating leads to sleeping leads to bleeding leads to… [jingle left unfinished]