How Do You Sleep?

Like many married couples, when Melissa and I book a hotel room, we always select the single King sized bed option as opposed to the two Queen’s. I mean, honestly, what would be the point of having an entire bed sit there unused? That makes no sense. I’m the only one using the bed after all, so why should I compact myself into a standard queen when I could be sprawled out across a glorious king?

I bet you just read that last sentence and thought, hold up, did he just say he was the only one using the bed??? Must be a mistype. Well my readers, I can assure you, you most certainly did not misread that. When it comes to me and Melissa in a hotel, I am always the only one sleeping in the bed.

Melissa has this lifelong hesitation/fear/aversion – whatever you want to call it – to sleeping in hotel beds. She absolutely refuses to do so. She never has and I can’t imagine she ever will and believe me, I’m not complaining. When asked why she refuses to sleep in them, she merely responds, “I don’t know, I just think they’re gross.”

So where does Melissa sleep when we stay in a hotel? Well, it used to just be on the floor, typically near the window, but since one magical night at Disneyland Resort’s Paradise Pier hotel, she has upgraded herself to the closet.

My California pseudo-siblings, the triplets: Gabby, Garrett, and Logan and their best friend, Colsen, all stan as witnesses to this sleeping arrangement of hers as they were there the night of the closet discovery. Initially, the kids reacted in complete disbelief and, if we can be honest, disgust, at her adamance to sleeping in the closet. Their minds altered though once they realized just how badly she snores. It became a complete relief to the five of us that she set up shop behind those sliding closet doors where her snores would remain contained in isolation.

Melissa snores so loudly that I believe it is why our sweet Céline (our French bulldog) and rascally Leo (our cat) spend the entire day sleeping. I can only assume it’s because they can’t catch a wink of sleep over her snores at night. I imagine they just lie there in their beds becoming numb to the noise in the eventual hope of dozing off. She sounds every bit as loud as a late-1800’s locomotive heading out west at full steam ahead.

In our pre-closet hotel room stay days, when she would be bundled up on the floor in a handful of blankets, I would always have to throw pillows down to wake her up in the common event she fell asleep before me. Melissa falls asleep super easily, but not me, I’m a gradual drifter. I will lie there thinking about a million different things till my mind just wears down. This makes racing her to sleep a fool’s errand for me as she most always crosses the finish line first.

I must say though, she truly is a sleeping beauty. I would always take a thankful moment to just sit there and stare down at her before throwing a pillow with all my might at her face. Those two Breathe Right nasal strips spread across her cute little nose and her mouth appearing to be completely shut despite all that noise escaping from it really was a sight to behold. All those times and I never once captured a picture. Such a mistake. Now that she always sleeps in the closets and I can no longer hear her, those photographic opportunities are all pretty much gone. Another classic example of how you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

One truly doesn’t realize just how large hotel closets are till you see someone sleeping inside one. Their size is genuinely remarkable. Up until Melissa discovered the benefits of sleeping inside them, closets had always remained the one area of the hotel room I never gave any thought, but how times change.

My more traditional readers will probably regard this next snippet as odd, but whatever, I’m an open book. The only time Melissa and I sleep in the same room is when we’re in a hotel and I’m sleeping in the bed and she the closet. In her house, she has her room and I have mine. We hate sleeping in the same room and both find it to be a massive inconvenience. Luckily, we only ever had to share a room in this house over the extended weekend of our wedding when we had guests from California staying with us. Oh, the sacrifices we make for friendship.

I absolutely hate the feeling of someone sleeping next to me. That additional body heat just makes it impossible for me to fall asleep. I am genuinely so blessed to have a wife that feels the exact same way because if she was looking to cuddle and shit all the time when we’re supposed to be sleeping I’d have to be like, get your ass up and go sleep someplace else. This shit ain’t happening. But fortunately, this is not an issue for us. Now I know what you’re all thinking and yes, we would both happily make a special exception for Britney Spears. If Britney wanted to share a bed with either one of us I’m certain we’d both be more than willing because who the fuck in their right mind would EVER tell Britney Spears no!?! You can count on us to NEVER be that person.

Well, as always, thank you ALL for reading! I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all my newly subscribed email followers! I truly appreciate you signing up! If you haven’t done so already, please feel free to add your email to my subscriptions list! This will ensure you NEVER miss a post!

PLEASE feel free to leave me a comment below if you enjoyed this entry or have your own sleeping story/setup to share! Nothing makes me happier than seeing I have a comment notification! For those of you who have left comments on past blogs know that I ALWAYS respond to them. I can assure you, I NEVER leave a comment go unresponded! Again, thank you all so much and I shall return next week!

BOOK UPDATE: This past week I went to the Granite City and St. Louis Central libraries as well as Left Bank Books in the Central West End to seek out books similar in scope to my own. This is part of the research process I must do for my book proposal and I figured going to places with actual books is a superior method than sitting in front of my computer 24/7. I found myself quite pleased with the findings I made and will excitedly be sharing those with you all once I have finished the proposal in full. My plan is to complete the book proposal before sending out any query letters to literary agents. I anticipate it will be a lengthy process, but I would hate to receive a response to my queries and not have my proposal ready for submission. Best not to put the cart before the horse I feel.