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.