Two Beds, or Not Two Beds…
Two beds, or not two beds, that is the question. To sleep separately, perchance to dream…
I’m a side sleeper. At least that’s how I fall asleep. Apparently the way I land and spend the rest of the night is a more varied and active endeavor. Lizzie has informed me repeatedly that I actually sleep on my back, when I’m not performing ice skating Triple Lutzes, and that I make “noises.” Not typical snoring noises, like the Harley-Davidson company made a chainsaw for cutting down petrified trees””she really hesitates to even use the word “snoring.” Apparently it’s more like the sound you would expect to hear after a cruel kid dropped his commemorative souvenir toy into the blow hole of a dolphin in the petting tank at Sea World. Lots of wheezing hisses and tormented sucking sounds. Awful. I’m not employing my imagination in describing this, I’ve listened to the recorded memo from my evidence-minded wife’s cellphone.
One day she blew me away by suddenly asking, “What if we got separate beds?” After my senses returned to me, I might have said something about saving some money by buying a gun and using it on me. Comfy beds are kinda pricey compared to a handgun.
My life’s thoughts on the subject flashed before my eyes…
Desi loved Lucy. But he did it from a wholesome distance.When I was a kid…
As a kid, I’d watch spouses, in black and white, tucking themselves into separate beds with a peck on the cheek, and I figured they just didn’t love each other very much in the olden days or were at least very official about it in their satin PJs.
The Age of Teen…
Even as a freshly minted teenager I knew enough about sex that you’re pretty much occupying the same footprint when making the beast with two backs, so when it came to “love” if you needed something bigger than a twin you were either doing it wrong or doing it extremely right. So maybe it wasn’t about a cold distance between bedfellows.
Later that decade…
I later found out that this separate bed thing in film and TV was mostly about censorship that had a yard long rod shoved up its… regulations. You weren’t allowed to depict a married couple sleeping in the same bed. Kind of like Jeannie’s covered up naval in I Dream of Jeannie. Apparently all this was supposed to curtail the blindness caused by masturbation and thwart sexual tendencies in teenagers. Or it was some held over tradition from the aristocracy sleeping in separate bedrooms so they could have affairs with their cousins while butlers were busy stabbing someone in their sleep. But that might have just been too many Masterpiece Theater murder mysteries skewing my perspective.
Fast forward to present day…
My jaw is still sort of hanging open about the suggestion that we get two beds. The fact that we have a California King just adds insult to injury. There’s just nowhere to go bigger than that unless we slept in an inflatable moon bounce.
How could anyone break this up? It just doesn’t work on twin beds.I know that my wife’s very life force is being extracted from her body by way of her boobs and she needs her sleep. I know that tormented dolphins performing bad break dancing in bed doesn’t really support great sleep… there’s that catchy expression: “Happy wife, happy life. Angry mother… you’re dead.” Or something. But I’m still sort of stung. In addition to being incredibly discouraging to me about the state of our union, it seemed like such a humiliating suggestion and I couldn’t even imagine telling other people or friends. “Oh sure, we decided to go with separate beds an’ all. Oh yeah! It’s great! She gets so much more sleep now, it’s fantastic. You know what else? I had my pesky testicles removed, too. Oh yeah! They were always getting in the way, just jangling around to and fro, and when you sit down wrong! Hoo hoo! Lemme tell ya! Well, those days are gone!”
“Present statistics” can shut the Hell up!
The present statistics on the subject of marriage may tell you that separate beds are on the rise, 1 out of 4 and all that jazz, snoring being the main reason followed by sleep gymnastics, mumbling and talking. Personally I think these are all amazing, like nighttime super powers. But, alas, Lizzie is not of the same mind, and when she is jackhammering me with a poking finger because I’m snorkeling poorly in my sleep, I can’t help but worry the next morning she’ll say, “Remember that question I asked you a while ago?…”
I just think back on nights where she’d woken me up because she couldn’t sleep because I’d rolled away and wasn’t touching her. And now? Two beds? She hasn’t pursued it, but I can’t really tell whether it’s because she now doesn’t think it would be a good idea or because of the “orphaned kitten sitting on a rainy doorstep” look that I gave her when she suggested it.
If your eyeballs aren’t worn out from reading… We’ve got lots more.
If your eyeball ARE worn out from reading… Give them a break with some pictures.
Liesbet says: 
Desiree 
Rachel 
mikes 
Chris 
John 
Kristin 
Charlie 
Kit 
Stephanie K. 
Kippie 
Kat 
Lizzie 
Amy 
marilee 
