Sleep Is Good If You Can Get It

The only thing more divisive to a marriage than the remote control is spousal sleeping habits.

I am a quiet, self-contained sleeper. My husband - a loud, rambunctious hoarder of sheets.

I sleep like a feather, always coasting just beneath the gauzy film of wakefulness. P-Dawg, on the other hand, has held entire conversations while zonked out cold.

Every night, I assume the same position in the corner of the bed that I staked out years ago. There is even a small Rima sized divot on my side of the mattress. The P-Dawg knows not where his divot is.

I follow an elaborate bedtime ritual involving moisturizer, nasal spray, lip balm, chamomile tea, and a book. Once my pillows have been satisfactorily configured, I crank up the noise machine, align my body with the mattress, pop a melatonin tablet, and slowly drop off to the land of nod.

P-Dawg, on the other hand, is down for the count and snoring before his head hits the pillow. He is a human furnace whose presence can easily raise the temperature under the covers by at least ten degrees and cause me to wake nightly in a peri-menopausal sweat.

Whilst slumbering, it is imperative that no portion of my body touch another living thing. Every morning, I wake up in the same position I fell asleep, with the sheets tucked neatly about my person in a perfect cocoon. Sometimes there is no need to make the bed, only to fold down the corner of the duvet from which I emerged and smooth it out. It's a mystery why no one has ever given me a prize for that.

My husband, bless his heart, nightly flails and thrashes about in a tangled ball of blankets, never assuming the same position twice. He has no boundaries, and whenever I am rudely awakened by the sound of a MedEvac helicopter coming in for a landing, it's because P-Dawg has been snoring directly into my unprotected ear.

The P-Dawg does not believe in "hospital corners" and considers having one's feet trapped beneath the covers cruel and unusual punishment. He defies my heartfelt conviction that sheets belong tucked neatly under the end of the mattress by nightly poking his tootsies out of their lovingly constructed 500 thread count tent.

It's always been that way. That is, until this morning, when I woke up with limbs askew, pillows thrown asunder, and a thin crust of drool clinging to my cheek.

"Have the aliens landed?"

"No," said the P-Dawg. "You were snoring like a rabid warthog all night long. I couldn't fall asleep for hours."

"You lie!" I said.

"No, really" the P-Dawg insisted, with a few demonstrative snorts.

I refuse to believe it. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt the good doctor to get a taste of his own medicine every now and again.

There's one in every relationship - a statue and a steamroller, a snorer and a snoree. Which one are you?