Every night, the Missus likes to spoon me and whisper sweet nothings in my ear as I drift off to sleep.
OK, maybe not every night, per se, but most nights.
Well, a lot of the time anyway.
Fine. Occasionally.
When she’s drunk.
The frequency isn’t really the point here, just know it’s more often than you get the same treatment.
From my Missus, anyway.
She’s always here with me.
That’s one of the benefits of the lock-down: I always know where she is and the lawyers can’t call it stalking.
Anymore.
But I digress.
The thing is, recently this whole “turn around so I can spoon you and quietly praise you” went from “Aw yeah, AWESOME” to “Oh crap, no!”
Why, you ask?
Three words:
Home brewed coffee.
I was never a huge coffee drinker before the lock-down. And to be perfectly honest, I’m still not a fan of the stuff. But lock-down, well, this may come as a shock to you, but it’s led to some problems.
The whole not having to drive into work, toil myself down to the bone, and then drive home from work an exhausted, broken, former shadow of a man thing kinda sorta disrupted my sleep schedule.
Oh sure, avoiding the daily commute and a demoralizing work day seems like a good thing, but
1) I still have to be demoralized, I just do it from home now with the added benefit of laggy internet, and
2) I somehow got the idea in my head that since I didn’t have to drive to work, I could stay up later and just roll out of bed right before the start of the workday.
Big mistake, that second one.
I end up staying up WAY too late, rolling out of bed just a hair too close to the start of my first meeting, struggling to make my way to the home office with eyes sealed shut by sleep crust, and desperately trying not to snore during said meeting.
(The Missus says I snore so loud I’m afraid my coworkers will hear even if I’m on mute.)
There was only one solution to this problem.
Coffee.
No, not going to bed earlier and setting a proper alarm.
Coffee.
And for awhile it was going great. The coffee boosted my awareness / consciousness, I got through the day without my soul completely sucked away, and, having stayed awake all day, I was able to go to bed at a reasonable(ish) hour where I would (occasionally) drift off to the dulcet tones of the Missus telling me how wonderful I am while ensconced in her warm, warm embrace.
Except not.
Because now when I crawl into bed, I deliberately face towards the Missus and secretly dread the singsong request to turn around and prepare to be, as the Tick might put it, “Spooned!”
(Spooooooned!)
“Who’s my yummy bummy sweeteekins,” she asks.
“Oh God, not tonight,” I scream (in my head, because I’m not so foolish as to diss the Missus right before entering the helpless sleep state…RIGHT NEXT TO HER FUMING SOUL).
“Who’s a wonder-thunder-dunderkin awesome-sauce tubby hubby,” she breathes into my ear.
“Can’t you just go to sleep and leave me alone, and also, I’m working on the gut!” I retort back (again, just in my head).
“Are you a special, amazing, wonderful human being who is perfect in every way I could possibly hope,” she gushes throatily.
“Not tonight, woman! But yes, yes I am,” I whine back in a pitch carefully calibrated to be inaudible to her ears.
What’s the problem, many of you are asking just about now. Especially those of you who’ve been married as long as the Missus and I have – this sort of fawning attention is UNHEARD OF this many years into marriage.
I’ve already told you the problem:
Home. Brewed. Coffee.
More specifically, home brewed coffee that causes stomach distress such that you desperately, feverishly need to but don’t want to let loose a barrage of avalanche-inducing farts while your beloved Missus is clamped to your back.
(Also, I’m convinced my coworkers will hear these bursts of gas even if I’m on mute and the meeting doesn’t start for hours. They. Are. That. Powerful.)
Think how far back THAT might set your matrimonial relationship!
So I am forced to mumble something about being SOOOO tired, throw in a few fake snores, and then “toss and turn” until the business end of my digestive system is pointed away from the ol’ Missus and then, finally, blissfully, happily, I can safely set the blankets a-flapping.
Unless, like that one time, the Missus is feeling romantic and has sprinkled rose petals all over the floor and bed and covered every non-cushy horizontal surface with lit candles.
Egads, woman! Don’t you know the bedroom is not the place for romance!?
Yeah, that was an interesting insurance claim.
Now, I know it’s been a rough year. I know people are looking for good news instead of bad. And given it’s nearly the end of 2020, I simply can’t go out on such a negative note, leaving you all worried about the status of my marriage and my sensitive digestive system.
That’s right, I actually have some good news, a sense of hope I can impart after this tale of (quite literally) nauseating woe!
There’s a fish! In the percolator!
It turns out the coffee maker we used to make our home brewed coffee had mold in it.
Yes, if you have one of those single-serving coffee machines with a reusable brew basket and you leave the wet grinds in it, mold starts to grow!
I had no idea.
But once we took the mold out of the equation, the digestive system more active than the volcanoes on Io went into remission.
That’s right. I can now be safely spooned and nuzzled and sweet-nothing’ed every night.
OK, maybe not every night, per se, but most of the time.
Well, a lot of the time anyway.
Fine. Occasionally.
When the Missus is drunk.
Which reminds me. I need to restock the liquor cabinet.
ian m dudley 