Love Snorey

I slept on the couch last night. In fact, I’ve slept on the couch downstairs for the past few weeks. It is not that I have been relegated to the secondary sleeping station of many a husband because of some dispute with my spouse. Quite the opposite, I am sleeping down there because I love my spouse. When I sleep on the couch, she actually sleeps better, which means that she is happier, which means that my goal as a loving, caring husband is fulfilled. Also there is the fact that it is awesome.

You see, over the past few months, I have become something of a snorer. I never used to snore. I am not sure if it is because of my weight gain catching up with my diaphragm or if it is my general feeling of apathy towards life seeping into my sleep patterns. I would like to blame it on my nasty cold however, which has ruled my life for about a month now. Just before Christmas, I got some nasty sinus headaches and soon had my nasal passages blocked by animated mucus blobs wearing wife-beaters. According to Miranda and her blood-shot eyes, this caused my snoring to be raised on the decibel scale from somewhere between the squeal of a pig being slaughtered and a jet fighter upon take off. I think it may have been a bit closer to the pig.

The coup-de-gracelessness, as it were, came on Christmas morning. After working until 12:30 at night filling-in for Santa’s elves, who long ago abandoned the hope of being able to provide our children with a sufficient number of toys, I was awoken by Miranda at 2:30 in the morning. “Honey, I’m sorry, but you keep snoring and I really need to get to sleep and I am so tired and...” I interrupted her by grabbing my saliva-soaked pillow and groggily exiting the bedroom whilst mumbling, “Well, Merry Christmas to you too.” I removed the back cushions on the couch, flopped down with my pillow and a thin throw blanket, and began anew a snoring session that tricked the neighborhood children into thinking they heard the prancing and heavy dragging of reindeer hooves on their roofs.

Since then, I have slept on the couch every night under the pretense of keeping my wife from my offensive snoring. In truth, I have never slept better. I have a few theories as to why this is. It could be the colder air in that portion of the house agrees better with my ample condition. It could be that I can snore or perform other nighttime expulsions entirely unencumbered by the restraints of a partner and ethical norms. It could also be the fact that, as small a surface area as the couch provides, it is still more room than the narrow ledge that my wife allows me on our appropriately named queen mattress.

I have never been a snuggler. It is nice to see people on television or in the movies who spoon up to their spouses and just cuddle all night long. In fact I watched that happen with envy in the movie Paranormal Activity. I really wanted to be able to have what that couple had, minus the cloven hoofed demon dragging my wife by her foot out of the room. I just have never been able to do that. When we were first married, it was a cute gesture; holding each other tightly as one of us gently fell asleep and breathed hot breath into the other one’s face until he was so uncomfortable that he had to use great skill to extract himself from the grasp and relieve the pain in his aching back. It was these newlywed attempts that quickly diminished the real estate holdings that I had on that mattress to the amount of space one would allow a sloth on a tree branch.

The resemblance is startling.

Last night, my wife and I spent the evening as a veritable picture of a seven-year couple with two children – watching DVRed American Idol and eating different kinds of junk food in opposite corners of the room.

“Coming up next on American Idol - can this young, now cancer-free, man from a meat packing plant in rural Arkansas impress the judges with his raw talent?”

“Yes!” Miranda exclaimed, with confident authority.

“Miranda, I think that it was more of a rhetorical question.”

“But I really think that he will.”

After the episode, I got my sheets and pillows from the closet and told Miranda to get off of my bed.

“Are you going to come upstairs and sleep with me tonight?” Over the years, I have come to distinguish this as purely a practical statement, void of any sexual implication whatsoever. My wife, for whatever reason, actually wanted me to lie down next to her, fall asleep, and then immediately awaken her with what sounds like a didgeridoo warning the neighboring village of an impending attack.

To me this was completely impractical. Though she wouldn’t admit it, I know that Miranda has been sleeping better with these new arrangements. She doesn’t have to hear me snore and she finally has full reign of the entire mattress, like Great Britain regaining control of the Falkland Islands. And I get to fall asleep watching episodes of Bear Grylls drinking fluid from a camel carcass. It is truly a win-win.

“After not even seven years, we are already turning into my parents.” Miranda was referencing the fact that her parents have a similar sleeping arrangement to our own. Her father sleeps in his own bedroom in the basement. This was borne out of the same grievance of snoring, but has turned into quite the luxury. My father-in-law has a complete surround sound system and a large, flat-screen television while my mother-in-law has more room for her collection of ceramic teddy bears from around the world. My own parents still sleep in the same bed, as long as my mother doesn’t fall asleep on the couch reading The Reading Lolita Potato Murder Club Society or my father doesn’t fall asleep downstairs watching Transformers 2. This could be because their combined cacophony of snoring sounds like something composed by Wagner. It is hauntingly beautiful.

To me, sleeping on the couch is a practical solution to a real problem. There is a reason that Lucy and Ricky are America’s best-loved television couple. Sure they may have constantly bickered and threatened physical violence and lied to each other and eventually divorced, but it seemed they were very happy with their network-mandated separate sleeping arrangements. Not like those scandalous swingers, the Bradys. But, when all is said and done, I guess that I can see Miranda’s need for the emotional attachment that comes with sleeping on the same story of the house as your loved one. Though we don’t cuddle up with each other very often, there is still some comfort in rolling over and feeling your spouse’s ice cold, unshaven leg brushing up against your own. I have made a lot of sacrifices in this marriage despite all practical logic (i.e. allowing the purchase of so many different plates that the only way to store them is by using them as wall decorations). I suppose that for the sake of our marriage, I can give up my makeshift bachelor pad of a couch and an amazing solid four hours of sleep before the children wake. What a true, loving, and lasting marriage really entails is looking into each other’s eyes and saying “I love you” before falling asleep together between exchanges of hot breath, cold feet, and rib-vibrating, rocket test-launch levels of auditory intrusion that in no way can be of a natural origin. Sleep tight.

She definitely has some 'splainin to do.