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Friday, March 6, 2009

Insomnia (and other reasons to avoid marriage)

Two male coworkers and I are running at lunchtime. Both are over 35 and married with one young female child.

Me: I haven’t been sleeping the past, like, two weeks, and I don’t really know why.

Man 1: That sucks. My wife was really upset about her mother a few nights ago, so I only got about three hours of sleep then. It’s hard going on that.

Me: God that’s awful!

Man 1: (shrugs) She has a lot of problems sleeping.

Man 2: My wife, too. I have this thing now where I snore a little, and she can’t sleep through it. We have these arguments at, like, four in the morning, because she’ll lie there and elbow me awake. I’ll be like, “Wha..? What?” And she’ll be like, “You’re doing it again.” What, am I supposed to remove my fucking trachea?

Man 1: My wife doesn’t let me move. She can’t sleep when there’s movement in the bed, so I have to lie perfectly still. Eventually I’ll feel her roll over, so I’ll grab the chance and turn over too, and then she’ll be like, “M___, why’d you do that?” And I’ll be like, “You were awake! You rolled over!” And she’ll say, “Yeah, but I was almost asleep; I was almost there. Now I’m awake again.”

Man 2: Wow. Man, I thought I had it tough.

Man 1: Sometimes I’m lying there on my side and my bottom leg goes numb because of the weight of my leg on top, but I can’t move it because she’ll wake up. But when I’m away travelling…in those king-sized beds….

(Both men grin.)

Me: (laughing incredulously) Oh my god, I am never getting married.

2 comments:

Daniel said...

Don;t let this taint your view of marriage, sleeping (zzzz, not uhhh) with my wife was the single best part of being married, I think you just have to find someone who you can be a good sleeper with.

Neen said...

Haha! It's so strange. When Joe and I first started dating, I lived in the dorms at Northeastern. When he'd stay over, we'd have to squeeze into my twin bed and just hope that neither of us rolled out onto the floor (LOL). When we decided to move in together, one of the first things we did was go bed shopping for a new, bigger mattress!

We look back on it now and say, "Boy, we must have really liked each other to put up with that!"