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closeSoup du jour: Separate bedrooms not such a bad idea
George Le Masurier
As I was reading The New York Times recently, I began to wonder about a few things: why somebody so close to the pinnacle of power in America is named “Scooter” and why I’m still sleeping with my wife.
According to a story, which reported on a survey by the National Association of Home Builders, the demand for dual master bedrooms is becoming an epidemic. More people want to sleep alone because they can no longer tolerate their spouse’s nocturnal restlessness.
Explaining the benefits of separate bedrooms for happily married couples, a Mrs. Pepper said, “My husband is still alive. I would have killed him.”
I’ll admit it’s easy to see how single bedrooms got started. When a couple lights up the flames of passion, sleeping together in one bed has certain advantages.
But, tell me, honestly, after the marriage has passed the initial flush of connubial enthusiasm what possible point is there in acting out the conventional rite of sleeping together except to enjoy each other’s cute little nighttime habits and idiosyncrasies?
(IMPORTANT NOTE: Despite what you may have heard, I do not snore.)
I think it was the great Broadway lyricist Sammy Cahn, or maybe Rush Limbaugh, who said, “Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage until one day the horse breaks a leg upon the pathway of love and the rusting bolts of the carriage start squeaking louder than the language of intimacy, and then and only then does the journey toward true love soar to the volume of 20 Grizzly bears roaring into the night.”
But enough about snoring, which I do not do. Let’s talk about bedroom postures.
I am the master of the uncomfortable position. While others are able to curl up like young children or cats, I always find myself in the most awkward of positions and wonder how I got there.
My daily dread is bedtime when the cold reality of the cumbersome nature of my body in relaxation is pushed to its peak. What does one do with those appendages like elbows and hands, ankles and feet, so useful in the waking hours, so superfluous in sleep?
Lying on my stomach, with arms outstretched and face squashed into the pillow, I’m soon gasping for air, or trying to straighten out my neck and un-flattening my nose. On either side, one arm quickly goes numb — although the sensation of a “sleeping appendage is quite fascinating — and on my back, well, it just doesn’t feel right.
Apparently my writhing each night, a vision of some malicious Boy Scout’s idea of an ambulating square knot, causes my wife to wake up occasionally because it could not be anything else, such as snoring.
And while we’re on the subject of my wife, I’ve begun to suspect a cryogenic plot to freeze me while I’m sleeping. She’s entered that time of life characterized by a diminishing need for blankets.
Let me just say they don’t make electric blankets with her kind of voltage because all the nuclear reactors are busy. Her natural inclination is to throw open the doors and windows and sleep under a duvet so light we have to tie it down with milk jugs filled with sand.
With such nighttime compatibility in our home, I just can’t understand this trend towards separate bedrooms.
(P.S. — I do not snore.)