RandomPokesThe Night of the Absentee WifeSteve Dennie
Three years ago I arrived in the Land of the Happily Married, a destination Mom had despaired of seeing her firstborn reach, but which Pam, in her intuitive omniscience, knew I would unexpectedly drive fullspeed into if she just kept my eyes on the road.
After ten years as a contented and somewhat rut-bound bachelor, I've been amazed at the changes which have overtaken me. Some I expected, like extra places to go at Christmastime for presents and someone to cuddle with at night, all night. But other changes caught me by surprise.
For instance, I go to bed earlier--around 11 p.m., as opposed to 2:00 in the morning. I didn't count on that.
I balance my checkbook every month and never incur penalty fees for not having quite enough money in the bank (attributed more to wedding a CPA than to marriage itself). I should have predicted that one, I suppose.
And I sleep with the closet door open. This is a Major League change.
Since I was a kid, I had slept with the bedroom closet door tightly shut, so the Boogey Man couldn't get me. Sure, people are supposed to outgrow irrational childhood fears. But habits die hard (as do Boogey Men), and even as an adult, I always made sure the closet door was shut before jumping into bed. If I noticed that the sliding door was cracked open even an inch, I'd climb out from under my electric blanket just to close it tight. You can't be too cautious.
Pam, however, grew up with a different Philosophy of Boogey Man Deterrence. She always kept the closet door wide open. If some hideous Salivating Slime Lizard lurked in the depths, she wanted to see it. If all she could see was skirts, blouses, and dresses hanging neatly and miscellaneous shoes littering the floor, she felt safe.
This concept is still hard for me to fathom. When Pam looks into an open closet, she sees security. When I look into an open closet, I see a Black Hole. It makes me wonder, "But what about when you go to sleep? Aren't you afraid The Hideous It will attack then?" But obviously, her strategy has worked fine for 30 years. You can't argue with success.
Anyway, this clash of basic life philosophies, which is never covered in pre-marital counseling, quickly surfaced. Being the Man of the House, I could have simply laid down the law and said, "I'm the designated Protector of this household, and I say the closet door stays shut!" But it wouldn't have mattered, because Pam, a 90's woman, would have said, "Oh yeah?"
The bottom line is that for the past three years, I have slept with the closet door wide open. And for the past two-and-a-half years, I have slept peacefully. This is, indeed, a fundamental change in my psychic make-up. But if someday Pam and I disappear, leaving nothing but fingernail marks clawing the floor all the way into the closet, you'll know who to blame.
Yet another major change concerns the strange metamorphosis of two fleshes into one, a process which results in Severe Fluster Disorder whenever you're apart.
This surfaced when Pam left town for a two-day seminar on some specialized area of CPAtology, something like "The Inverse Depreciation Scheduling and IRS-Sanctioned Hyper-Amortized Inventorying of Recycled Post-It Notes." She had to spend a night in a motel in Indianapolis. That meant I, for the first time since treading the aisle, had to stay overnight in our apartment all by my lonesome. Pam had stayed there by herself a number of times, since I travel quite a bit, but I had never been the lonely heart left at home. It was just me and Maddie, my feline daughter, like when I was single.
Since I have no trouble sleeping alone when I'm on the road, I didn't figure I'd have any trouble sleeping by myself in my own bed. How naive.
First, there were the spiders. The weather had turned cool, so multitudinous creepy-crawly things decided to come inside to warm their tentacles.
I loathe spiders. If I had been Frodo the Hobbit facing the despicable spider Shelob, I would have frozen in fright and Sauron the Dark Lord of Mordor would have prevailed. Even a Daddy Long Legs makes me shiver. I'll never ever watch Arachnophobia .
Before climbing into bed, I killed two spiders right there in the bedroom and another one out in the hall. I crawled under the covers with visions of spiders everywhere. Pam and I (but mainly Pam) had been squishing spiders nearly every day. This didn't cause me undue trauma. But everything changed with Pam gone. This time I was by myself, and it gave me the willies.
The idea of being alone in the dark didn't appeal to me, either. Never mind that during ten years of singlehood, I always slept with every light off. That part of me, clearly, had passed from this time-space continuum. On that night, without Pam to cuddle with for security, I opted to leave the bathroom light on.
Not that the light helped me sleep any better. I lay there in the middle of the queen-size bed, faint whiffs of Raid gracing my nostrils, unable to reach Dreamland. Reading didn't help. Neither did watching TV.
I eventually did fall asleep, but I didn't sleep well. The solitude, the utter Lack of Pam, somehow mangled my nerves. Instead of dozing fitfully, I tossed and turned all night, trying in vain to find a comfortable position, and I awoke constantly.
Maddie, as far as I could tell, stayed out of the bedroom all night. Normally, she jumps onto the bed a few times and walks around, purring loud enough to wake the neighbors, and she spends at least part of the night sleeping at the foot of the bed. But I never saw her that night. I think she was out by the stairs, waiting for Pam to come home.
When Pam returned the next day, I told her all about my semi-sleepless night and how I had such a rotten time without her.
She thought it was wonderful.
Copyright 2005 Steve Dennie |
