Marriage Rule #5. I Must Sleep on Two-Thirds of the King-Size Bed

 

I know this sounds unfair, making my wife Carrie and our dog Gretchen, a forty-pound Finnish Spitz, cram themselves on one-third of the bed while I splay myself on the other two-thirds, but this isn’t about me being a bed hog. This is about Carrie and Gretchen being protected from my flailing arms during my nightmares.

These horrific dreams tend to focus on Burt Lahr in his role as the Cowardly Lion. Since childhood, I have never been capable of looking at the Cowardly Lion directly in the eyes. Framed with forlorn pouches beneath and crenellated brows above, those eye slits are especially suggestive of Satan or some other tormented demon. The bald pate and ruffled hair, tied in parts with ribbons to mock the pampered grooming of a Shih-Tzu or some other cuddly lapdog, only add to the terror. Then there are Bert Lahr’s growls, not the feral sounds of a lion but of a soul writhing and languishing in hell. 

When I suffer my Cowardly Lion nightmares, Burt Lahr will chase me, getting closer and closer, until I wake myself up with my own growls that sound, eerily, like his. Carrie and Gretchen often endure my moving violently in bed while I growl, louder and louder, until Carrie or the barking Gretchen wakes me from my night terror.

Sometimes these Cowardly Lion dreams are especially bad and after awakening I feel an evil presence in the room and must turn the light on and watch TV for a while until I sense that the evil presence has departed. I have another measure that helps drown out the evil presence and this leads us to my next rule. 

Comments

[Jesse Menn]

1. As a severe insomniac who has gone through way too many hospital stays to list, and frequently has to pop between 20-40mg of Ambien (sorry, that hippy-dippy melatonin crap is a nice placebo, but nothing else) before getting to sleep, I feel your pain and offer my condolences.

2. Be happy you got a king-size... My girlfriend has a short full-size so half of my calves + my feet dangle off the edge.

3. Every feminist in the world is about to beat down your door and smash your face.

[herculodge]

I hope there are some good feminists out there who detect the ironic tone of the narrator and as a result don't really believe this narrator's nonsense or at least see that he's parodying an egotist and as such is championing a life that denounces egotisim in the context of marital politics. That was a mouthful.

I need some sleep.

[Jesse Menn]

Wouldn't count on it.

[herculodge]

A lack of humor is a sign of insanity. I hope you leave academia soon.