The Princess and The Big Uncomfortable Pea

After yesterday's post of No Interest Whatsoever, I thought it only appropriate that I continue in that same vein.

(It's Theme Week!!)


I've mentioned maybe once or twice or maybe too many awful times to count that The Chief and I have very different opinions on what constitutes a pleasant sleeping environment.

While I prefer a soft mattress, a temperature near freezing, extremely high thread count sheets, a nice low steady humming noise and a constant stream of cool air blowing directly onto my person (I've always dreamed of sleeping in a wind tunnel of sorts, or maybe with one of those large industrial 6 ft. tall fans that they use in auto repair shops),  The Chief, on the other hand (and I might add freakishly) would prefer to sleep on a bed with a sleep number setting of "granite", a temperature of I'M PRETTY SURE MY SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION IS INEVITABLE, no cover at all, and with air as still as, well, very, extremely still air.
And no steady humming at all.

I ask you. In what universe is that normal?

But we have persevered, and as all married couples do, sacrificed our ultimate happiness compromised periodically to make this whole commitment thing work.

While I have learned to sleep at a higher temperature than I would prefer, and even do OK with a semi-firm mattress and The Chief has gotten used to the pleasant hum of an oscillating fan (only if it is not pointed directly at him) and will even occasionally as a joke come to bed wearing a knit cap as a visible symbol of his tolerance of the temperature I prefer that he calls "the tundra", we still on occasion, have issues.

I should probably warn you right now that this story will not likely get much more interesting.

But in the interest of fairness and your continued participation, I don't think we have quite reached the high point just yet, either.

So seriously. Hang on to your hats.

I kid. No hat-holding required.


Anyway, The Chief has been sick. The kind of sick that when you are pretty much well, and feel fine during the day, as soon as your body goes horizontal at night you began hacking in a process that is likely to lead to the coughing up of one or both of your lungs.

Well. Last night The Chief went to bed  a while before I did and I could hear him coughing pretty enthusiastically while I was in the bathroom taking my bath. I was hoping that I would miss the majority of the whole coughing spell and he would hack himself into a pleasant sleep by the time I finished with my whole nighttime ritual.

No such luck. When I crawled into bed, not only was he still coughing, but I determined pretty quickly that he had gotten up at some point and turned the ceiling fan down from medium to low and I was quick to surmise that I was going to either die soon, or at the very least never go to sleep (even after he coughed himself unconscious he began some pretty  impressive snoring). I considered hopping up and just turning my beloved fan back onto medium (thankfully he had not thought to fiddle with the oscillating fan which I had quite unselfishly pointed up and away from the bed) so I still had my noise (I'm practically a saint, I know) but after an hour or so I finally decided to just ditch all those ideas and go to the guest room.

As it turns out the guest room with the best oscillating fan is also the guest room that is currently housing about 20 huge boxes of hardwood flooring (for the farmhouse) stacked directly in front of the bed. I couldn't possibly consider the other guest room with the perfectly accessible bed because that oscillating fan makes a funny clicking noise so, um, no thank you ma'am.

In retrospect I suppose I could have transferred the good fan to the room with the good bed but I'll admit that I sometimes do not do my best cognitive thinking at 2 am.  I proceeded to climb the mountain of boxes to get to the bed and then scaled (ha! a musical/piano-ish pun!) the piano bench ( there's a piano in the room too) to get to the fan and turn it on. Mission accomplished. I then attempted to get back to the bed and in transit one of the folded antique (old) quilts that I had stacked there earlier decided to slide off the bed with me riding right along with it, ruining a perfectly good pedicure in the process. After sobbing for a minute or two I laid down and pulled up the sheet, and was immediately overwhelmed with the scent of my oldest son (who stayed in this room for a few weeks over the summer and on occasion does things like ride his bike for forty miles at night and then goes to bed without a shower). Now keep in mind that I love this son (as well as his brother) but this is not the same sweet scent that I loved when they were babies and smelled of Johnson's Baby Shampoo.

Seriously? Have I not washed these sheets since he left in early August last week?

Then, evidently, I blessedly fell asleep for about 3 hours before The Chief (who leaves very early for work) burst in, turned on the light and asked in a concerned but mostly a Very Loud Voice "what on earth are you doing in here?"

I'm not sure how I responded, but he eventually left and that was my night in a nutshell.

A very long and boring nutshell, I realize.

I feel like I should at least redeem myself with some kind of moral to the story.

All I can think of is:

This is what it's really like to be married.

I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way.


The End