Sleep Battles

Sleep Battles was first published on 2/2/12.  It was revised and republished on 6/18/12 for Yeah Write Challenge #62
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While waiting for my daughter Kyra to finish her piano lesson, I sat in my car browsing through my mobile Facebook app.  I noticed that Kellie had updated her profile information, but it appears that she might not understand what sort of items to place in each of the categories.  

For example, Kellie listed “Taking Naps” under the Activities category. Taking a nap is not an activity; it’s inactivity.  It’s the antithesis of activity.  The only way to become more inactive is by dying. 

She makes a similar categorization error when enumerating her interests.  Kellie lists napping ahead of all her other interests.  Naps are not an interest.  Napping is what you do when you are not interested in doing anything else. 

Kellie loves sleeping and napping so much that she gets all giddy and excited just thinking about the possibility of dozing off. She's been searching for the perfect bed to help carry her off into dreamland. Since we've been married she has purchased four different beds – none of them cheap. Her latest acquisition, a king-size Tempur-Pedic, set me back over four grand. Still, she has failed to achieve mattress nirvana. I think she now recognizes that buying another bed any time soon could send me into a dissociative fugue.

I don’t share her enthusiasm for sleep; for me, unconsciousness is just a waste of time. Plus, I'm a bit of an insomniac. Our differing attitudes about sleep have produced a few disagreements. At one time or another we have bickered about: who gets which side of the bed, sleep positions, hogging the bed, the temperature of the room, whether to cuddle or not to cuddle, flannel sheets, tossing and turning, cracking knuckles, cracking toes, getting up in the middle of the night, the size of the bed, the firmness of the mattress, my snoring, her wheezing, having the window open, sleeping with the kids, sleeping with the dogs, sleeping with the cats, the number of pillows, the number of blankets, stealing pillows, steeling blankets, the volume of the television, the brightness of the reading light, what time to go to bed, what time to get up, nocturnal flatulence, and spousal arousal syndrome. The last one is not what you think.  

Out of all the things that couples do together, partners will devote the most time to just trying to get some sleep while sharing the same bed. You would think that perspective mates would verify their compatibility in this vital area before committing to a lifetime of nocturnal sparring. It seldom happens.  eHarmony touts their one-of-a-kind questionnaire for its ability to match couples’ compatibility along 29 different personality dimensions, but not one of the 258 questions addresses sleep preferences.  

I now understand the reasoning behind the admonition against premarital sex. It has nothing to do with religion or morality; it's about not masking potential bedtime conflicts. During the infatuation stage of a relationship, sex serves as a natural sleep aid that obscures any sleep-time incompatibilities. Sleep battles are just the withdrawal symptoms that occur following the abrupt cessation of sex. The remedy seems clear.
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