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Fri. Jul 13, 2007

My Sleeping Dilemma

When new members enter your household, routines change. What once worked now sometimes does not. And you may encounter difficult choices you’ve never faced before.

I live with a woman who works very hard. This, in turn, means she sleeps very hard. So hard that harsh sounds do not disturb her. Like, well, her own snoring.

This is nothing new to me. It’s far from an “every night” thing, but there are times that, after an hour of trying to ignore the sounds and failing, I simply have to get up and go sleep on the couch. It’s truly not a big deal. She claims I have night time emission problems as well. But from the other end. It would appear that, between the two of us, at night we’ve got both ends of the alimentary canal pretty well covered.

Aren’t you glad I shared? I leave it to you to decide which of us has it worse, but this is why marriages work. You realize that no one else will put up with your noise, so perhaps you should put up with theirs.

However, the other night I did something I’ve never done before. I walked into the darkened bedroom to go to sleep, but it sounded like the Sequoia National Forest was being taken out with one massive chainsaw. So I didn’t even get into bed, after five seconds I simply turned around and walked out. It was already clear this was a battle I would lose, so it was off to the couch for me. As I said, no big deal.

Except … now we have two kittens. And Daddy sleeping on the couch was a new experience for them. They had to come join me, but couldn’t quite decide what to do with me. Is he a toy? Is he a mountain for climbing? Is he a pillow? Is he a bed? We must try them all to find out!

And I laid there debating the lesser of sleeping evils, snoring wife or playful kittens. The next to last thing I remember was considering the comfort level I might find if I tried sleeping in my truck. But the last thing I remember thinking was … “you know, dude, you could be sleeping entirely alone. No wife. No kitties. One big empty. That’s the way it was 15 years ago.”

And then I woke up, with my wife gently removing the kittens from my side, telling me to go to bed. And I realized things could be a whole lot worse.