COLUMN: The battle of the sexes goes undercover

I hope your holiday was full of surprises, and I mean the good kind, like when you find a jelly bean in the cushions, not bad surprises, like when you walk in on Grandma in the shower or when Grandma walks in on you.

I had a surprise too. It was one of those surprises that after it happens, everything from before makes more sense. It’s like when you find out that the killer was the janitor’s babysitter or when you discover at 6 p.m. that you’ve had your underwear on backwards all day.

Despite my secret clearing so much about my past, I still was a bit horrified by it. It was like finding out you’re a werewolf by waking up covered in blood.

It turns out I really do hog the covers.

This was terrifying for me. I’ve always been the good guy. It shook me up quite a bit to find out I really am as big of a jerk as my wife has been saying I am.

I realized this while I was in that state between sleep and awake, where you are so out of it that you can’t be held responsible for your actions, but you are anyway.

I didn’t mean to do it – at least I don’t think I did – but I pulled the covers up to my neck and in a quick deliberate motion, rolled over, taking the blankets with me and leaving my wife completely exposed to the elements.

It was December in Idaho; I might as well have pushed her down in the snow and laughed at her.

I’d like to say this was a first time offense, but I’m not sure. My wife claims I’ve been doing it since the beginning. Maybe she’s right. If she’s right about that, maybe she’s right about other things. Hmmm…. Maybe I should stop my all-fruit pie diet.

I can’t really justify what I did. All I can say is I was never properly prepared to sleep with another person.

Don’t get me wrong; I knew I would sleep with my wife. But I’m talking about plain old, no italics, sleeping in the same bed for 8 hours a day, every day.

No one sits you down on your wedding night and explains the logistics of sharing a bed.

I don’t know if it’s like this for every married couple, but sleeping with my wife is like trying to set up a slip ‘n’ slide in a mine field. I’m sure there’s a safe way to do it, but it’s really hard to find.

Every night before we go to bed, I have to turn the heat up. I’m not cold, but I still have to do it.

After we both crawl under the covers (which I have to sleep under or a mummy will get me – don’t ask), my wife proceeds to violate the laws of thermodynamics by producing more heat than she put into the system.

I find myself constantly worried about sleeping too close to her, because she’ll either latch onto me, thereby cooking me alive in a burning hug of death, or I’ll accidentally brush against her feet, which even though I’m basically sleeping in a sauna, are cold enough to keep food from spoiling.

So I have to keep my distance all night. The problem is my wife, somehow oblivious to the fact she’s producing enough BTUs to heat a small village, gets cold and needs to come closer to me for warmth.

This puts me on the defensive, and yet, if I retreat to the other end of the bed too soon, she’ll follow me, eventually pinning me against the wall, leaving me nowhere to go.

And so I just lie there, really hot, really squished and just hoping I can fall asleep before I have to go to the bathroom.

I shudder to think what will happen when we move and put the bed in the middle of the room like a normal couple.

Man, all this is making me tired. I’m going to take a nap.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a senior in computer science who doesn’t sleep much because he firmly believes there’s no rest for the awesome. Comments can be sent to him at steveshinney@cc.usu.edu.