BEDTIME RITUALS (or sock tacos)
I love my bed and can’t wait to get into it at night. But I especially like my electric blanket and I run out of the bathroom in my nightshirt and scramble under that nice warm blanket. But since I have toes that take a little longer to warm up than the rest of me, I usually keep my socks on until they start to feel toasty, too.
So I have this problem: what to do with the socks? I used to just toss them to the side, but when the sock graveyard started taking over the bedroom, I’d throw them in the washer. But, you know, even just lying there, those socks in that little graveyard looked kind of sad and dreary and gloomy… kind of boring.
Uh oh. Did you say boring? If there’s something I can’t stand, it’s boring. Well, we must do something about it.
My socks became a weapon of torture for Jeff, as I would usually wait until he was comfortable and ready to lose himself in his book, then I would very carefully and quietly bend down and remove one sock. I slowly move my hand with a wrinkled sock. Slowly, slowly, though while pretending to study the bulges in the ceiling. But, this is where I have to be VERY QUICK AND GET IT IN HIS UNDERWEAR from him.
I’m not usually successful anymore. Unfortunately… Jeff is up to my tricks. Life used to be so simple. I put my socks in his underwear and he was screaming and screaming. Now I try to put my socks under his underwear and all of a sudden he turns from a silently reading husband into this raging, snorting, flailing bull.
What a view! Now we’re thrashing each other in bed as he frantically throws off all the covers, reaching for the OTHER sock he knows he’s surely waiting for. But I’m not going to give up so easily. I have to succeed with at least one sock. And I rarely do.
A few minutes later, there I was, totally deprived of all weapons and he was hitting me on the top of the head with his socks. I have the appearance of total defeat, but in reality I am planning my next move. And I just smile sweetly at him.
Sometimes, because I love my bed and electric blanket so much, I go to bed long before he does. But now I have no victim for my Sock Wads. He studied the ground. NOT. My Sock Wads don’t deserve such a boring death! You have to kill them with style!
Well, what to do? Well, we’ll just take one and put it on your side of the bed, under the covers of course. And the second… let’s see… how about under the pillow? And he ALWAYS forgets, at least until he throws back the sheets and finds the first one. Sometimes I have the satisfaction that he climbs into the bed and lies on top of one. There are those snarls and snarls and snarls again, transformed into a flash for the Sock Beast. He does not return to Quiet Guy until his bloodlust is completely quenched and satisfied.
Now, IF I’m asleep, the Sock Beast sometimes wakes me up with his flails and growls, but mostly he shakes things so much… who could sleep? But he’s getting so used to my tricks, sometimes we’re lying so peacefully, and all I have to do is make the slightest move and he transforms into the Beast and pulls the covers off and tries to get my own socks. off my feet for me. Isn’t that sweet?
But what if I’m still not ready to have my socks knocked off, and especially not by such a crazed animal? By the time it was all over, there I was, once again deprived of all my weaponry and he was hitting me on the top of the head again with a sock. I turn to study the bumps on the ceiling again with the occasional Mona Lisa smile for him, or would you call that the Cheshire cat smile?
I once managed to gain some ground in this night war. Having gotten there a few minutes before him, I reached down and picked up a sock that had been bouncing around the room the night before. I hide it under my back. Here it comes, now, shhhh.
He gets into bed and is discussing something or other. I bend down to remove one sock and the transformation begins with bulging eyes and snarling teeth. She removes one sock from my foot and now goes for the other. I’m doing everything I can to hold on to that second sock. Now we’re both snarling and growing, hair-raising. Add some WHISTLES and the picture is now complete.
He is satisfied and goes to bed. Once again I have been stripped of all cotton torture tools that can be used against him. He thinks. Slowly, slowly, oh so carefully, I reach under my back and begin to slowly crawl over to his side of the bed.
He looks at me.
i smile
You think I’m lying. He’s not worried, he just took TWO socks off of me by brute force. So he ignores me. I smile and watch him as I continue my walk, and then FASTER THAN QUICK, I have that Sock Wad under his underwear.
The look of sheer astonishment that crosses his face…ah, it was worth getting socked that night. Now I am happy and I can sleep. But now it’s Jeff who lies awake, unable to sleep, his eyes wide and rolling, fear frozen on his face.
he he