Weaponized Tedium: Surviving Scoots' Bizarre IKEA Build on 'Sleep With Me'
Have you ever found yourself in a heated internal debate at 2 AM over whether the bottom of a drawer actually has a top? Probably not. But that's exactly where Scoots drags us in this staggeringly mundane episode of Sleep With Me. And honestly—it works like absolute magic.
Let's get the weirdest part out of the way right up front.
Weaponized Tedium
The bulk of the episode is essentially a real-time, completely unhinged IKEA furniture assembly session. We're building a "Kugas" storage box, a Karmsund mirror, and a Nordly dresser. Well, Scoots is building it. You, the listener, are supposedly lying perfectly still on a yoga mat while he does the heavy lifting and rambles about hill giants storing grain.
It's brilliant because it perfectly mimics the kind of useless, loop-like thinking that keeps insomniacs awake anyway. Instead of your brain spiraling about that embarrassing thing you said at a party in 2018, it's forced to trace the logic of a man asking for an "Octo-wrench point four" to fight Spider-Man.
- The Skyrim Tangent: Mid-build, he entirely derails to complain about his Skyrim faction loyalty. Imperials versus Stormcloaks. Classic sleep fodder.
- The Drawer Bottom Crisis: A solid five minutes is dedicated to explaining that "the top of the bottom of the drawer" faces the inside. It's so confusing it genuinely forces your prefrontal cortex to just give up and shut down.
- Zero Stakes: He assures us we don't even need a hex wrench. Just a flat-head, a Phillips, and profound patience. Phew.
Golden Nugget: "When it comes to bottoms of drawers, I'm the top. So thank you so much."
The Vulnerability Beneath the Nonsense
But here's where the episode took a surprisingly sharp turn. Bookending all the hypnotic talk about dowels and channel locks is a remarkably raw plea regarding the show's listener support.
Scoots sounds tired. Like, deep-in-his-bones tired. He mentions the "intense" Patreon pitches they've been running since April 2025, openly admitting that the stress of keeping the podcast financially afloat is making it nearly impossible to actually produce the show. It's a brutal tightrope. He wants to bring "sleepy joy and delight" without alienating the exact audience he's trying to soothe.
I review a frankly absurd number of podcasts, and rarely do you hear a host openly ask: What actually goes through your mind when I ask for money? Do you think someone else has it covered? Do you resent the interruption? He's crowdsourcing his own existential crisis to figure out a holistic way forward. It’s refreshing, if a bit heartbreaking.
If you're one of the folks who relies on his weird little tangents to survive the deep dark night, maybe it's time to chip in. Or don't. As Scoots says, no pressure. Just lie back, ignore the encroaching dread of modern life, and let the man talk about plastic dowel locks until you finally fade out.
Listen to Bedtime Stories to Bore You Asleep from Sleep With Me: https://podranker.com/podcast/sleep-to-strange