Beware the Blanket Thief
By
James L. Davis
It
has recently come to my attention that I am a blanket thief. It happened
because one night I woke in the middle of the night and thought to myself that
we had a very comfortable vibrating bed. Then I remembered that we do not own
a vibrating bed.
The
vibrations were coming from my wife, who was shivering violently. She was shivering so violently that her feet were on the verge of being shaken free
from their frozen position in the small of my back. This is their normal
sleeping position. I believe that that the normal sleeping position for most
women’s feet is in the small of the back of their husband. I do not understand this and the simple fact that women can so position themselves to plant their
feet in the small of a man’s back while also stealing their pillow speaks of an
elasticity that no man could ever hope to duplicate.
I
was mortified to discover that I was in fact a blanket thief and I threw the
blankets back over my wife. She immediately curled them around her body to form
a cocoon of warmth, all the while keeping her feet firmly planted in the small
of my back. I gave the blankets to her because I don’t really use them for
warmth, I curl them into a large, comfortable pillow to replace the one my wife
has stolen from me. I would use my wife’s pillow but my wife seems to believe
her pillow belongs on the floor, because that is where it always ends up.
Had
I been using the blankets as blankets instead of a pillow, the fact that I had
stolen them would have been of no consequence to my wife, because when sleeping
my wife forms her body so completely to my own that the blankets would cover us
both anyway. The fact that she does so again makes me wonder about the amazing
elasticity of a woman’s body. It also makes me wonder why we have a queen size
bed, because we only use a quarter of it. Depending on how we choose to rotate
our bed and where I decide to position myself for sleep, we could in theory
sleep on our queen size bed three times longer than the average couple.
Of
course that only applies when we are sleeping on the bed together, because the
way we sleep on the bed together is totally and completely different than how
we sleep on the bed by ourselves. When sleeping on the bed together my wife
waits patiently while I try out one position or the other and finally settle
into the same position that I sleep in every night, curled with my face to the
outside of the bed, teetering precariously on the edge and at risk of falling
off the bed entirely. Then she forms her own body to mine, something like the
face hugger in the Alien movies, but much more pleasant. Once we have melded
into one sleepy mass, we fall asleep almost immediately. But that is not the
case when sleeping in bed alone. When I have the bed to myself, I sleep in the
center of the bed, spread eagle with both my pillow and my wife’s pillow under
my head. I have observed that my wife sleeps in pretty much the same fashion
when she has the bed to herself.
While
I could speculate that the reason we sleep so closely together is because of
our love for each other, the real reason, I suspect, that we sleep curled
together like we do has much less to do with our love for each other and more
to do with the fact that our stomachs are sentient beings intent on the
overthrow of the rest of our bodies.
I
suspect as much because on occasion I will wake in the middle of the night for
reasons other than the realization that I have stolen all of the blankets. When
I do I have been shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that my wife’s
stomach and mine are talking to each other.
It
sounds innocent enough, sure, but I believe there is something sinister at work between our two stomachs. Lying in bed I listen closely as my wife’s stomach
makes a whispering demand of my own stomach.
“Orrrmmm
ahhhh errr errr grrrpp,” her stomach will say.
“Uhh
grrshhh ahh,” my stomach will reply.
I
have tried to tell myself that it is simply the rumblings of two stomachs in
the middle of the night, but I have awakened to their alien dialogue far too
often to believe their conversation to be so innocent. They are plotting
something, if not the overthrow of the civilized world, then at the very least,
the overthrow of our own bodies.
How
else can my wife and I have the same craving for chocolate chunk ice cream
while watching The Biggest Loser, if not by some diabolical plot of our
stomachs? Coincidence, you say? I think not.
While I may not know exactly what our
two stomachs may be up to, I believe that in the scheme of things my wife’s
stomach is the leader of the two. The only proof I offer is the demanding
quality of the sounds my wife’s stomach makes and the subservient wails my
stomach gives in reply. I have listened to them moan and gurgle long enough now
that I am beginning to slowly unravel their language. I believe their
conversation revolves around the theft of a blanket.
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