Friday, September 13, 2013

Day 138--September 12, 2013


Confessions of Things That Go On in
Our Bedroom in the Middle of the Night 

          For the first twenty-eight years, Richard and I slept on a queen-size mattress.  As with many couples, we are complete opposites.  I am hot natured, and he is always cold.  He likes a hard mattress.  I want it to be soft.  He wants the heater on.   I want the a/c on.
          He is a lark.  I am an owl. As I said, we are complete opposites.
          During those twenty-eight years, Richard would turn over in bed about every three hours.  Nothing really wrong with that except, he always turns the same direction.  And with each roll, he would take the sheet and thin blanket with him until he was wrapped like a dead body in a rug.  If I had a dollar for every time I was faced with this situation, I could be sitting pretty (or in this case, laying pretty).
          Many, many nights I would get out of bed, walk to Richard’s side, grab the edge of the blanket, put my foot on the side of the bed, and pull with all my might.  I’d unroll him like a Venetian blind.  Funny thing is, he seldom ever woke up.  Believe me, he would have awaken quickly if he had known how appealing that dead body in a rug sounded to me.
          Somewhere around the twenty-ninth year of our wedded bliss, I developed back trouble (probably from having to unroll him), so we had to do something different with the mattress.  We tried a couple different ones, but we were like Goldilock’s bears.  This one was too hard.  This one was too soft.
          Our solution came in the form of twin beds put together inside a king-size frame.  I have a Craftmatic adjustable bed, and Richard’s is one of those thick foam jobbies.  He got his from F. Flintstone Rock Quarry and Mattress Sales.
          During this whole trip to Alaska, Richard’s side of the bed has been made up with a fitted sheet, top sheet, twin-size heating blanket (heated almost every night) and a lightweight coverlet.  Me?  Bottom sheet, top sheet.  Good to go.
          When we get out of bed in the morning, the room looks like a war zone.  My top sheet is tucked in the crevice between our tight-fitting mattresses.  The heating blanket and the coverlet are twisted into a ball and are lying on the floor at the foot of Richard’s side of the bed.
          We have the same conversation EVERY morning.
Richard:  What do you do during the night to cause this mess?
Me:  I don’t do that.  Remember I never have covers.  That’s why I sleep in long flannel nightgowns at all time.
Richard:  Well, I’m always cold.  I wouldn’t kick off my blanket.  It has to be you.
Me:  They are on your side of the bed.  It has to be you.
          We really are puzzled by this.  Well, the other night, I’d gone to the bathroom about 3:00am, I was just making my way around the foot of the bed, when Richard sat straight up, literally rolled the heating blanket and coverlet into a ball and pitched it to the floor, missing me by inches.  He lay back down.  He was sound asleep.
          I was so excited you would have thought I’d discovered the secrets of the Pyramids.  Of course, Richard didn’t believe me.  That’s okay because I saw it with my own eyes and even I didn’t believe it.  LOL
          Oh, and by the way, he quit rolling inside the covers when he started using a breathing apparatus for sleep apnea.  It’s like a tether that bulks at that rolling thing. 
Until next time,
Dolores

No comments:

Post a Comment