Blankets – I have always been someone who did not want to share her bed. Ever. With anything. No stuffed animals, no cats, no dogs, no sisters, no friends on a road trip trying to save money on a cheap hotel – no one. My path in life was a much harder one to trod. To date I have shared my bed with a squashy tootsie roll pillow, 3 cats, a 125 pound Great Dane, my sister and various friends at various times. I have not enjoyed it. I did not find it comforting to have another being beside me. I did not want to be touched while sleeping; leave me blissfully and unconsciously alone. The closest I came to having a husband in bed was the Great Dane. It went something like this. “Okay Katie, bedtime, get in your kennel” to which my dog obediently plopped in her kennel, gave me a soulful look as though I were torturing her and sighed as only a Great Dane can sigh. Around 2 hours later, when I was at my most vulnerable and droozy with sleep there would suddenly be this full force compression on my chest as my clumsy Dane puppy plopped her 125 pounds on me. It was like a nightly practice for CPR, only I was the test dummy. I really was the dummy, because we repeated this pattern every night for months; yet somehow I was always surprised. Slooooooow learner. Trying to move a Great Dane when they have decided to stay is akin to trying to move the Great Pyramid of Giza with those furniture slider thingys – not going to happen… The next morning I would awake clinging to the vertical side of my bed by my fingernails and sheer cussed stubbornness, while the Great Dane was ecstatically, fully stretched out with her head on my pillow. Sigh…
These experiences gave me little hope for peaceful slumber in my married life. I fully expected to give up sleeping as the price for marital bliss. Imagine my surprise to find that not only do I like sleeping in the same bed as my husband, but I actually can’t go to sleep without being in my “spot” curled on up his shoulder. Shocking! That spot is like finding out the mirage shimmering in the distance really is water in the middle of an oasis. In my opinion, every night, of every year spent without that spot was a thirsty desert experience.
There is only one teensy, tiny, itsy, bitsy, little problem. I hardly think it worth mentioning, but without it, there would be nothing to blog about [grin]. Blankets. My husband steals them. Actually, I think steals might be too strong a word, perhaps cocoons into them would be better. My husband has no body fat. Like none. I work very hard not to break that "Thou shalt not covet" commandment over that one, but it’s really hard. It makes me feel like I’m living in a Jack Sprat poem. Because of this one terrible flaw of his, he seeks warmth like a missile. Usually this means I wake up shivering and having to go to the bathroom. Now, one does not necessarily lead to the other, but the bathroom trip is inevitable.
I need to note, that there are few things in life more miserable than waking up in the middle of the night freezing cold AND having to go to the bathroom.
After the necessary trip to the necessary, I am faced with a dilemma. What once was my long, lean, stretched out husband has become this tight, squished up ball of Beloved and blankets. The first time this scenario played itself out, I did what any loving wife would do and I unrolled the bundle and took my side of the blankets back. Then the most horrifying thing happened! My husband, in his sleep emitted the saddest sounding whispered “Brrrrrrrrrrr” and lay there unconsciously shivering until the cold half of the blankets warmed up. I felt like I kicked a puppy and pulled the cat's tail all in the same night. Nobody warned me about this! I thought all these blanket stealers were hardened criminals, capable of the most heinous criminal acts like leaving one’s new bride out in the cold. But no, I find that they, or at least mine, are simply skinny popsicles in need of a defrost cycle. So now, I lie there thinking, should I or shouldn’t I unroll the husband burrito? Warmth or love, now there’s a real dilemma! Perhaps I should just wriggle my way into that burrito!
