The Great Bedroom Experiment of 2011

Abraham Lincoln once said “Variety is the spice of life”.  What do you mean he didn’t say that?  Well, what did Lincoln say then?  Oh yeah…that’s right.  He said “Party on, dudes”.

We can debate who said “variety is the spice of life” and even debate whether or not it is true.  What we cannot debate is that the Cars sang “Shake it up.  Oo-oo.  Shake it up.”  (As an aside, how did Ric Ocasek every marry Paulina Porizkova? She is a classic beauty and he is...well, Gollum.  Or at the very least a cross between Dana Carvey and Keith Richards' grandmother). 

This brings us to The Great Bedroom Experiment of 2011.  But before we get to that, we need to back track to 1989.  (To stay with the theme, in 1989, The Alarm released an album called Change.  I saw The Alarm once in college.  They opened for Bob Dylan at Starwood Amphitheater in Nashville.  I don’t think it’s called “Starwood” anymore.  Likely the name was changed due to corporate sponsorship and not some clever marketing attempt at variety, ergo, spice).

Where we were?  Oh yeah…1989.  On November 18, 1989 The Wife and I got married.  That night, I took (or was assigned) the left side of the bed.  I don’t remember how sides were chosen.  Rock, paper scissors?  Flip a coin (The Wife: “Heads I get the right side.  Tails you get the left”).  However it happened, I got the left (I am not left-handed, neither am I a liberal, so that doesn’t explain it either) and from that point on the left has always been my side.  That was until The Great Bedroom Experiment of 2011. 

When I am lying in bed, I can’t see the entire TV screen in the bedroom.  The covers, or The Wife’s knee or foot block the bottom half of the screen.  If the weather is on…I only see the high temperatures.  If sports…I only see the visiting teams’ scores.  If Leno…I only see his gray hair and giant chin (to be fair, that is all anyone ever sees of Leno).  So, one night I simply decided to “shake it up” and take the right side of the bed. 

While the view of the TV was outstanding, there were a few implications of this change that I had not considered.  First, The Wife has many books.  A three level book shelf sits on the right side of the bed.  It is full of books.  So full that other books are stacked up next to the bookshelf waiting to get in.  She even has a little velvet rope to keep these books in their place and out of the shelf.  The entire public school system in the state of West Virginia may not have this many books.  So, a permanent change in sides-of-the-bed would require either the constant handing of books to The Wife or moving the shelf.  Well, moving the shelf would mean a significant packing and unpacking procedure, relocating other furniture on the left side of the bed to make room for the shelf and the shelf overflow and then re-packing the shelves.  I would have to rent a backhoe for this.  We might as well sell the house and move.

The biggest problem, however, was: This change was not met with enthusiasm by The Wife.

“This side of the bed is lumpy”.

“Did you switch the pillows, too?”

“It smells funny over here”.

So after about a week of “variety”, The Wife decided that she had had about as much “spice of life” as she could stand.  I walked in the bedroom one night, and she has re-claimed the right side of the bed. Peering over her book: “You’re done over here.  Get back on your side”.  Thus ended The Not-So-Great Bedroom Experiment of 2011. 

The first lesson to learn here is that when you choose a wife, you are making a number of other life-long decisions that you may not be aware of.  One of which is “side of bed”.  However, if you choose well when finding The Wife (see link here), then you can learn to live with never seeing the news crawl while watching SportsCenter as you doze off to sleep.

Second, whether you are a left-sider or a right-sider, Keep a Happy Wife if you want to “meet in the middle”.

Finally, the third lesson…“You must be the change you want to see in the world”.  Ted “Theodore” Logan said that.

Be sure to check out the "Triple Take on Sports" and "Reviews, Previews and Insightful Commentary" sections of the blog.  I offer some advise to Tiger Woods about his caddy situation and review the new Transformers movie.