Bed Stories

Last week Reuben and I went for a little getaway in Door County. We badly needed it; our summer had been pretty awful. As well as our spring. And winter. Oh well. It happens. I am placing all my bets on 2011 to be the year of permanent, never-ending and glorious bliss.
Blindingly bright.
I already have my sunglasses on.Anyway - we made reservations in smaller hotels. Nothing fancy this time, just a bed and a shower, you know. Wooden cabins, outdated picture frames, quilts and lacy window treatments. Country-style. Cheesy much? Oh yeah!
Everything was good and well until we settled down for the night after a long day of riding in:
- the car for close to 6 hours
- a smelly ferry on a very choppy Lake Michigan
- and a couple of ancient bikes we used to tour the island (Washington) we were at. On. Whatever. We did in the wind and under the rain.that's what counts.

The bed was squeaky, very bouncy (powerful springs, lemme tell you!!) but also...............very small.
Full-sized small.
Bummer.So now for most of the world a full-sized bed is NOT small. It is just perfectly normal. And in any case, a big upgrade from one's twin from childhood. I happily shared one of these for years without questioning, feeling squeezed, uncomfortable or claustrophobic.
I never fell off of the boat either. Even by 'rocky' waters (insert stupid grin here).

But everything went awry 4 years ago when Reuben decided that he was tired to deal with dwarf-size furniture and pulled an American move on me.
He bought a KING size bed.
Oh boy. Oh man. Oh God.
That was the end of the world as I knew it.
At least it was not Californian.

The thing is just huge. HUGE. Ever heard of ménage à trois? I am sure this bed was created for that particular naughty purpose. I jokingly say to all my friends who are considering taking the ultimate step that going from queen to king is just asking for divorce. Seriously - how do you keep the intimacy alive when there is an ocean of pillows, cotton sheets or - way worse - fleece sheets (ahhhhhhhhhhh!!) between the two of you?!? Add to the equation a cat or two, a demanding dog and a wife who likes to sleep at the edge of the bed, and there you have it: a marriage in peril.
Just kidding kids.
Or am I?

At first I was not a big fan. I was cold, felt lonely and abandoned by my bed partner. I missed feeling his hairy legs on mine, his respiration on my neck and his vicious kicks in the middle of the night. But I quickly realized that it was indeed......nice. Incredibly so. I could almost sleep in a diagonal without bothering anyone. Sweee-eeet!
Our Ikea bed is not the best nor the most comfortable in the world but I grew really fond of it. It takes most of the room in a little chambre but what the hell?!? This is, after all, a BED-room. Right?
The only thing that still bothers me a lot about my XL-size bed, American fashion: the price tag of the sheets. But every luxury has its price.

So that night we laid down, turned off the lights and closed our eyes. Trying to get away from each other. Bodies way too close.
He got up - on my sleepy suggestion - in the middle of the night to go on the sofa.

That says it all.

I hope we'll never have to move back to Europe.
We'll be screwed. In the bad sense of the word.