Zombies Under Bed

[realexplodingcat]

OK, I am long overdue for a "my wife is crazy" post. Now, I know--the term should not be used lightly, but if she were wrapped in cellophane, she'd be mistaken for a Payday candy bar. Anyhow, I often try to forget just how crazy my wife is. You'd think this would be hard given her night terrors (oh! the screaming) and odd choice in houseguests (Ganesh! He ate all my peanuts), but those are but charming diversions. And her habit of playing Head and Shoulders, Knees and Tentacles with my firstborn son is really just a peculiar quirk.

The real problem is monsters and their chosen abode. My wife believes that monsters reside under our bed--any bed, really.

Oh, ho, ho! you think. She just has a vivid imagination.

No. My wife thinks Labyrinth is a documentary.

She's rather fond of monsters, in theory, but she fears the practical application of their talents--such as eating her feet. To this end, she stuffs as much as she can under the bed, assuring me that monsters live in transdimensional spaces, so she's not infringing upon their natural habitat, but merely using some handy storage. I swear, she fit a couple of kayaks under the bed, so maybe she's right about the transdimensional space. Plus, she points out, the more she puts under the bed, the more obstacles the monsters will stub their claws on, so she'll hear them coming when they try to nibble her toes.

So, I watch the floor, just in case. I have to admit, if I saw a lone glove scuttling out from the footboard, chased by a spool of packing tape and a Russian pool safety poster ca. 1993, I'd be a bit worried. I might even put away the straitjacket.

Anyhow, this is all academic. Most of the time I forget about her queer ideas. My life was happily (albeit sleepily) meandering along in blissful ignorance until tonight.

As usual, she waited until 10pm to start a project. Tonight's project: sidecarring the crib to our bed, so that she could move the baby over (he's been sleeping between us) and enjoy her half of our queen size mattress once again. Her side of the bed had been pressed up against the side-rail of the crib. Our room is too small to do otherwise. Also, we never put the baby in the crib because we didn't have the heart to drop him in the cage at night. Anyhow, she left me with a sleepy babe and ran to the bedroom, claiming she was going to shower in "just a minute". I eventually go in there to find that she's pretty much done with the sidecarring and she is covered with dust instead of being showered. The crib is cozied up next to our bed without the side-rail and the gap between the beds is filled in. So, while we don't have a "master bedroom" we now have a Master Bed, complete with an addition that could double as a den (it's got nice wood paneling on 3 sides) and a Master Bath (if you consider how often the baby will poop there).

She decides to take her shower and comments offhand "Well, I won't need the body pillow anymore."

For the last seven weeks, she's been pressed against a body pillow, which was in turn pressed against the side of the crib. I have no idea why she was willing to lose a foot of her space, but I didn't say anything, figuring she was probably doing some sort of somnabulent reclining to ease her sciatica. I shouldn't have asked, but I did.

"Um, why won't you need the body pillow?"

"Because the gap is closed over. Monsters can't come up that way."

Yes. For SEVEN weeks, she has slept in a tiny amount of space, turned on her side, because of the possibility that SOMETHING might squeeze through the bars of the crib after crawling from under our bed to under the crib. I point out that the bars were only 2" apart.

"Tentacles."

So there you have it. My wife has disrupted her precious sleep over the chance that something with tentacles will slither up from dimensions beyond any sane comprehension.

Tonight's a Glenlivet night.

Comments

[bedbugsbite.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahahahaha. Oh, that's fabulous! I love your wife.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

*Every* night is a Glenlivet night! Slainte!!

[eilonwy.livejournal.com]

this is the best thing i've read on lj in aaaaaaaages.

also, i miss you guys too damn much. :P

[ismene.livejournal.com]

I knew there was a reason the baby was always photographed with mittens on.

[parhelion-spark.livejournal.com]

Oh, I adore your wife! I don't think that's nuts at all, though? Well, ok, I don't get the pillow bit, being as hanging charms about is much more convenient. But the belief in what is essentially 'faerie'? Oh I am so there.
It leads me to wonder, is she a Charles de Lint fan?

[ex-xn667.livejournal.com]

If that isn't in your Top 10 list for reasons to love her, I don't know what should be *g*

[audiorapture.livejournal.com]

You're not crazy if there really *are* monsters under your bed. Transcendental or not. They'll find you.

[alierakieron.livejournal.com]

It only sounds crazy because you HAVEN'T seen the mitten go skuttling across the floor in the middle of the night. *nods seriously*

[quix.livejournal.com]

FWIW, we must never let our wives meet, because mine is convinced that the monsters live in the closet. Our closets MUST be closed before we go to bed. If they are open when we get into bed, she will get up to close them (or more often get me to get up to close them). If they were to ever meet, they might convince each other that they are in BOTH locations and we'll never get to sleep. :)

[seeliespright.livejournal.com]

You should have just given her a machete and then she wouldn't have needed a body pillow.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

Well, you know if the thing under the bed has tenticles, you might want to get a DNA test on the kid to make sure who the father is, you or the monster. After all, tenticles are inherited, and the mittens have been covering his hands....

[mac-arthur-park.livejournal.com]

No. My wife thinks Labyrinth is a documentary.

*blinks* You mean it's not?

[inahappycrowd.livejournal.com]

Your wife is how I linked into this post. Does she know the song, "Goodnight Demonslayer" by Voltaire? It's supposed to be for a child, but I recommend that you play it for her as a lullaby and teach her how to slay the monsters, herself. ;-)

[inahappycrowd.livejournal.com]

It's off of the newest album, Then and Again. In all sincerity, it's a somewhat playful, but ultimately serious lullaby that Voltaire wrote for his son. He confronts the typical monsters under the bed that a young child fears and tells him that he won't claim that they don't exist, but instead, will teach his son to be strong and defeat them. At the end, there's a profound universal truth to it all and these are my favourite lines:
"This world of ours is not as it seems
The monsters are real, but they're not in your dreams
Learn what you can from the beasts you defeat
You'll need it for some of the people you meet"

It actually makes me get teary-eyed sometimes...

[ashbet]

Well, *I* firmly believe in "the toe-bitey things," so I'm with Jos on this one ;)

-- A (what was funny was that when our kittens were little, they WERE toe-biters . . . MY PREDICTIONS CAME TRUE!)