I Don't Just Dream It, I Live It
/After more than a decade of listening to me whining and bitching complaining about our mattress, my husband finally manned up relented and forked out the cash for a new mattress and box spring for our bed.
It was well past the time for a new one. I mean, let's face it. We bought the thing when we were young and in love. We may or may not have bounced on it so much that the springs were starting to poke through the fabric.
It was a (ahem) well-used mattress if you catch my drift. Wink, wink.
Boo was in no hurry to replace the mattress. He kept putting it off, justifying one more night, one more week on the bed of springs by telling me there were better things he could spend our money on.
Like massages from one-legged Asian midget hookers up north.
He's thoughtful like that.
Of course he wasn't worried about our mattress. That man sleeps like the dead whether a sharp metal spring is tickling his ass crack or not. The man could sleep on a bed of nails and still wake up fully rested with a morning erection looking to get some.
That combined with the fact he only has to spend four or five days actually trying to sleep on our old sagging, stained and sharp bed of broken pocket springs meant he was unconcerned with the state of our marital bed. Hell, as far as he was concerned, a lumpy mattress just acted as insurance for him.Â
He knew there was no way I was going to bring home anybody else to do a little mattress dancing on our embarrassingly old sleeping pad. And if I did, he'd be able to identify the poor schlep by the scars from being stabbed by an errant metal spring while rolling around with me.
He's a clever dude, my husband. Plus he sleeps on a new, comfortable mattress at the hoity toity hotel he's staying in, 26 nights of the month.
I, however, am not so lucky. Which meant he was not going to get lucky unless he stopped being such a dumbass money miser and cough up the funds for a pretty new mattress for his princess.
Sure, it took a little persuasion of the sexy kind, but eventually he came around to my point of view. (Don't judge me people.) I've been crawling out from that marital dip so long I've permanent spinal damage. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to get her way. Even if that means dusting off the ole knee pads.
Or agreeing to sleep in the wet spot. (Gah.)
It was a happy day not so long ago, when I eagerly watched (as I sat on my ass and declined to help) as he wrestled our new, expensive and sparkly mattress through our front door.
The kids and I gleefully hauled the old mattress out of the house and tossed it off the front deck like the true rednecks we are. Nothing says class like a stained ugly mattress sitting on one's grass like a lawn ornament.
As Boo cussed and cursed and sweated his way into getting our oversized mattress and it's brand spanking new box spring onto our bed, the children and I took turns jumping off the deck and bouncing onto the mattress below while screeching 'Cowabunga!!!" at the tops of our lungs.
We made a game out of seeing who could avoid getting stabbed by an errant spring. I lost that game, but it was well worth the wounds when I was finally able to climb on my much higher, firmer and more comfortable new pad and waggle my eyebrows at my sweating husband and ask him if he wanted to take a test drive with me on our new bed.
He may or may not have agreed. He may or may not have made me do most of the work as he whined about how much heavier they make mattresses nowadays and how tired he was from hauling that thing off the truck, up our deck, into the house and onto our ridiculously high poster bed while I played with the kids.
I may or may not have just ignored him as I broke in our new bed. (Aren't we the most romantic couple EVER?) Snicker.
I had high hopes that with our new mattress I would finally be able to find some peace at night as I tried to slumber. No longer did I have to worry about rolling into my husband's smelly armpits in the middle of the night or being stabbed wide awake as a spring poked at my sensitive bits. Nor did I have to worry about catching a boob ring on one of the sharp springs and ripping off my boob.Â
I could barely contain my glee at the simple luxury of knowing I could finally sleep in peace; rest in comfort.
But I soon learned it doesn't matter how much money one sinks into the quality of their nightly foundation, bad dreams and insomnia will find you no matter whether you sleep on a bed of rusty coils or the finest feathers a swan can part with.
While I no longer wake up feeling like an arthritic 80-year-old woman who just ran the Boston Marathon the night before, I'm still having trouble sleeping. Dreams plague me nightly, thoughts and worries about adoption and life torment my nightly rest.
Last night was no different. Between a series of dreams where visions of past friends, green eyes and old tragedies twisted my psyche, I tossed and turned and tried to find a quiet moment of sleep.Â
Nixon, the World's Greatest Dog, Ever, did not help with his flatulent gifts or his obnoxious snoring. Thatcher, the newest Wonder Dog and Nixon's trusty sidekick kept trying to push me off my pillow or sleep directly on my face. I despaired of ever getting any real rest and eyed the alarm clock wearily, wondering if I would still be awake when the kids finally tumbled out of bed with more energy than a rabbit on crack.
Eventually I must have drifted off. That's when Bug came to visit me like he so often does. Some times the dreams are sweet and I want to weep upon waking, wishing urgently to go back to dreamland to spend one more minute with him as his mommy. Other times the dreams are angst-filled and scary and I wake up mired in a blanket of grief so thick it threatens to smother me.
Last night was neither. My dream was more a fuzzy, garbled recollection of a memory from his short life. Shale had a habit near the end of his life, of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and crawling into the kitchen under the cover of darkness, to find his way to the kitchen cupboards.
From there he'd slip his little fingers under the door and start banging the cupboard closed, repeatedly while singing "ARGHHHHHH, AHHHHHH, UHHHHH" at the top of his little musical voice.
One such night I woke up to the repeated thunking of the kitchen cupboards and dragged my disoriented ass into the kitchen, half panicked there was an autistic robber going through my cabinets looking for silver.
I screeched like a little girl when the beady little whites of my child's unblinking eyes stared at me when I finally located the source of the banging. Bug giggled gleefully and dawning came upon me as I fully woke up and realized it wasn't a disabled thief knocking at my kitchen, just my disabled child.
I bent down to scoop him up into my arms to tuck him back into his bed so I could crawl back into my own when a disturbing odour wafted up and tickled my nose. My mommy radar kicked in and I was wise enough to turn on the stove light to survey the damage before sticking my hand into something disgusting.
Turned out Bug's diaper had runneth over. Which is likely why the little dude was awake and thumping the kitchen cabinetry. He was telling me in his own thoughtful way to get my arse out of bed and take care of his business.
In fact, there was a trail of business all the way from his bed, down the hall and into the kitchen. You could see where he had scooched so freely in his escape from his now decidedly stinky room in his midnight madness.
Bug had also thoughtfully stuck his hands into said business and painted happy hieroglyphics among various surfaces of the wall and cabinets.
My darling four year old covered in shit, my house filled with it, and I remember cussing something about him being a shit head as I tossed him into the bath, stripped his bedding and started scrubbing the floors and the walls at two in the morning.
I was reliving that moment in time (because out of all the damned memories Bug left me with THIS was the one my darling self chose to review) last night as I slumbered on my new fancy mattress and the smell was so very vivid. It was like I was reliving the disgusting moment of time and my nose hairs were curling up and falling off as I slept.
Right as I bent down to start wiping up the mess, I gagged a little in my dream and as I reached out to clean up the mess I woke up from this half nightmare, half recollection.
That's when I opened my eyes.
And found Thatcher the sidekick, sitting on my pillow not an inch from my nose, eating a piece of cat crap.
Smelly cat scat. On my pillow. On my new mattress. By my face.
Remnants of the litter box pickings she so thoughtfully brought to me were scattered on my mattress. Where I sleep. Naked.
It seemed my night was filled with shit and now so, my day.
Thatcher dropped her tasty morsel of poop when she realized I was awake and in true puppy love fashion, leaned over and licked my face with doggy love before I could even blink.
Welcome to Monday. Apparently I can't escape the shit.
It was well past the time for a new one. I mean, let's face it. We bought the thing when we were young and in love. We may or may not have bounced on it so much that the springs were starting to poke through the fabric.
It was a (ahem) well-used mattress if you catch my drift. Wink, wink.
Boo was in no hurry to replace the mattress. He kept putting it off, justifying one more night, one more week on the bed of springs by telling me there were better things he could spend our money on.
Like massages from one-legged Asian midget hookers up north.
He's thoughtful like that.
Of course he wasn't worried about our mattress. That man sleeps like the dead whether a sharp metal spring is tickling his ass crack or not. The man could sleep on a bed of nails and still wake up fully rested with a morning erection looking to get some.
That combined with the fact he only has to spend four or five days actually trying to sleep on our old sagging, stained and sharp bed of broken pocket springs meant he was unconcerned with the state of our marital bed. Hell, as far as he was concerned, a lumpy mattress just acted as insurance for him.Â
He knew there was no way I was going to bring home anybody else to do a little mattress dancing on our embarrassingly old sleeping pad. And if I did, he'd be able to identify the poor schlep by the scars from being stabbed by an errant metal spring while rolling around with me.
He's a clever dude, my husband. Plus he sleeps on a new, comfortable mattress at the hoity toity hotel he's staying in, 26 nights of the month.
I, however, am not so lucky. Which meant he was not going to get lucky unless he stopped being such a dumbass money miser and cough up the funds for a pretty new mattress for his princess.
Sure, it took a little persuasion of the sexy kind, but eventually he came around to my point of view. (Don't judge me people.) I've been crawling out from that marital dip so long I've permanent spinal damage. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to get her way. Even if that means dusting off the ole knee pads.
Or agreeing to sleep in the wet spot. (Gah.)
It was a happy day not so long ago, when I eagerly watched (as I sat on my ass and declined to help) as he wrestled our new, expensive and sparkly mattress through our front door.
The kids and I gleefully hauled the old mattress out of the house and tossed it off the front deck like the true rednecks we are. Nothing says class like a stained ugly mattress sitting on one's grass like a lawn ornament.
As Boo cussed and cursed and sweated his way into getting our oversized mattress and it's brand spanking new box spring onto our bed, the children and I took turns jumping off the deck and bouncing onto the mattress below while screeching 'Cowabunga!!!" at the tops of our lungs.
We made a game out of seeing who could avoid getting stabbed by an errant spring. I lost that game, but it was well worth the wounds when I was finally able to climb on my much higher, firmer and more comfortable new pad and waggle my eyebrows at my sweating husband and ask him if he wanted to take a test drive with me on our new bed.
He may or may not have agreed. He may or may not have made me do most of the work as he whined about how much heavier they make mattresses nowadays and how tired he was from hauling that thing off the truck, up our deck, into the house and onto our ridiculously high poster bed while I played with the kids.
I may or may not have just ignored him as I broke in our new bed. (Aren't we the most romantic couple EVER?) Snicker.
I had high hopes that with our new mattress I would finally be able to find some peace at night as I tried to slumber. No longer did I have to worry about rolling into my husband's smelly armpits in the middle of the night or being stabbed wide awake as a spring poked at my sensitive bits. Nor did I have to worry about catching a boob ring on one of the sharp springs and ripping off my boob.Â
I could barely contain my glee at the simple luxury of knowing I could finally sleep in peace; rest in comfort.
But I soon learned it doesn't matter how much money one sinks into the quality of their nightly foundation, bad dreams and insomnia will find you no matter whether you sleep on a bed of rusty coils or the finest feathers a swan can part with.
While I no longer wake up feeling like an arthritic 80-year-old woman who just ran the Boston Marathon the night before, I'm still having trouble sleeping. Dreams plague me nightly, thoughts and worries about adoption and life torment my nightly rest.
Last night was no different. Between a series of dreams where visions of past friends, green eyes and old tragedies twisted my psyche, I tossed and turned and tried to find a quiet moment of sleep.Â
Nixon, the World's Greatest Dog, Ever, did not help with his flatulent gifts or his obnoxious snoring. Thatcher, the newest Wonder Dog and Nixon's trusty sidekick kept trying to push me off my pillow or sleep directly on my face. I despaired of ever getting any real rest and eyed the alarm clock wearily, wondering if I would still be awake when the kids finally tumbled out of bed with more energy than a rabbit on crack.
Eventually I must have drifted off. That's when Bug came to visit me like he so often does. Some times the dreams are sweet and I want to weep upon waking, wishing urgently to go back to dreamland to spend one more minute with him as his mommy. Other times the dreams are angst-filled and scary and I wake up mired in a blanket of grief so thick it threatens to smother me.
Last night was neither. My dream was more a fuzzy, garbled recollection of a memory from his short life. Shale had a habit near the end of his life, of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and crawling into the kitchen under the cover of darkness, to find his way to the kitchen cupboards.
From there he'd slip his little fingers under the door and start banging the cupboard closed, repeatedly while singing "ARGHHHHHH, AHHHHHH, UHHHHH" at the top of his little musical voice.
One such night I woke up to the repeated thunking of the kitchen cupboards and dragged my disoriented ass into the kitchen, half panicked there was an autistic robber going through my cabinets looking for silver.
I screeched like a little girl when the beady little whites of my child's unblinking eyes stared at me when I finally located the source of the banging. Bug giggled gleefully and dawning came upon me as I fully woke up and realized it wasn't a disabled thief knocking at my kitchen, just my disabled child.
I bent down to scoop him up into my arms to tuck him back into his bed so I could crawl back into my own when a disturbing odour wafted up and tickled my nose. My mommy radar kicked in and I was wise enough to turn on the stove light to survey the damage before sticking my hand into something disgusting.
Turned out Bug's diaper had runneth over. Which is likely why the little dude was awake and thumping the kitchen cabinetry. He was telling me in his own thoughtful way to get my arse out of bed and take care of his business.
In fact, there was a trail of business all the way from his bed, down the hall and into the kitchen. You could see where he had scooched so freely in his escape from his now decidedly stinky room in his midnight madness.
Bug had also thoughtfully stuck his hands into said business and painted happy hieroglyphics among various surfaces of the wall and cabinets.
My darling four year old covered in shit, my house filled with it, and I remember cussing something about him being a shit head as I tossed him into the bath, stripped his bedding and started scrubbing the floors and the walls at two in the morning.
I was reliving that moment in time (because out of all the damned memories Bug left me with THIS was the one my darling self chose to review) last night as I slumbered on my new fancy mattress and the smell was so very vivid. It was like I was reliving the disgusting moment of time and my nose hairs were curling up and falling off as I slept.
Right as I bent down to start wiping up the mess, I gagged a little in my dream and as I reached out to clean up the mess I woke up from this half nightmare, half recollection.
That's when I opened my eyes.
And found Thatcher the sidekick, sitting on my pillow not an inch from my nose, eating a piece of cat crap.
Smelly cat scat. On my pillow. On my new mattress. By my face.
Remnants of the litter box pickings she so thoughtfully brought to me were scattered on my mattress. Where I sleep. Naked.
It seemed my night was filled with shit and now so, my day.
Thatcher dropped her tasty morsel of poop when she realized I was awake and in true puppy love fashion, leaned over and licked my face with doggy love before I could even blink.
Welcome to Monday. Apparently I can't escape the shit.