My wife sleeps next to me. Her lips pouched in a way that is total relaxation. It’s late at night, and I can hear the rain outside. It brings a cool feeling to the house.
“Honey,” she says.
“Yes,” I answer.
“You are queso.”
I don’t exactly know what my wife means by this, and I’m sure she doesn’t realize what she means by this either. She’s a sleep talker, and some where in her dream, I can only guess that she is turning me into a hot cheesy dip and using chips to eat all of my goodness.
It’s an interesting thing being married to a sleep talker. It really should be included in your vows.
“Do you vow to love in sickness and in health, and when they tell in the middle of the night that the meeting is all set for tomorrow so make sure you bring the kites.”
This year marks my 21st year of marriage with my wife. That’s a lot of married experience, especially in today’s world. My advice to new couples that are considering marriage is to not get offended when the other one bolts upright in bed at 3 am and asks you why all the donkeys are in the pasture.
I can have full-on conversations with my wife when she sleep talks. Somewhere in the core of her being, she hears me.
“I don’t understand why you just can’t go,” she said a couple of weeks ago. Knowing that she was fully asleep, I had my fun.
“Because the motorcycle can’t run on the ocean,” I told her.
“Well of course it can! Fix it!”
Not all of our conversations are confrontational. Sometimes they are quite sweet.
“I wouldn’t kill you, you know that,” my wife recently let me know. My heart melts when she talks to me.
Of course, sometimes it’s more than just sleep talking. I’ve learned to sleep in a defensive position because I’ve gotten way to many smacks to the face or knees to the groin. I’m not sure what I did in her dream world to deserve any of that. It must have been pretty bad for my pacifist wife to act out like that.
And there have been other times when I didn’t realize she was sleep talking at all.
“Ok, we need to plan the snail’s prom,” my wife said. I was reading late into the night and looked over at her.
“What’s a snail’s prom?” I asked. She was looking right at me. Eyes wide open, comprehension fully on her face.
“Stop joking around, this is important,” she said.
I had a couple of options in front of me. First, she could be possessed. I have considered the possibility that demons would try to get to my awesomeness through my innocent wife. But since my wife wasn’t spewing pea soup and her head wasn’t spinning, I decided that it was most likely not that.
My next thought was that she was reliving one of her past lives. Obviously, in this life she is very concerned about the snail prom, and who wouldn’t be? I mean, that’s got to be a major undertaking even in the best of circumstances. You have to make sure none of the centerpieces have salt shakers, that there are wipes around for the colossal amount of slime, and that the theme speaks to a snail’s playful nature. But then I remembered that there could only be one of my wife or otherwise the universe would shatter.
Which left me with the most superhero option: my wife can talk in her sleep while her eyes are fully open. Now this is pretty scary. If you remember, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings sleeps with his eyes open. It’s also not unheard of in nature, or so I think but I’ll be honest, I’m not going to look that up. So let’s go with an animal or fish probably sleeps with their eyes open.
“Honey,” I said. “You are talking in your sleep.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are.”
“You just hate snails.”
“I hate proms. But I assure you, I love snails.”
Then she huffed at me and went turned over and went back to bed, probably dreaming of what the last dance song would be at a snail’s prom.
For 21 years I have been doing this with my wife. And it’s also why she never falls asleep on a plane as she is terrified that they won’t know what to do with a prom-type emergency. I have found though that these are the quirks that make a marriage special though. The things you would never consider or see coming. And to be honest, 21 years doesn’t seem like nearly enough time to be married to her. It’s like I’m just getting to the good part of the book, and I don’t want to stop reading. But then again, I’m pretty tired of getting hit in the face because I’m not queso.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
Holy Crap. How am I just finding this article. It’s 6am, and I just had a rough night with, my, wife. “Im not sure where it’s snowing, but I assure you, it’s, not, alright!” Forgive my improper grammar or punctuation, but I too, married a sleep talker. Is there anything I can do? I have to call into work and take sick or vacation time because I’m up all night sometimes. She laughs, cries, yells “Bingo!”. It’s getting worse. I’ve known her for 43 years and been married for 34. I knew she slept with her eyes open, but sleep… Read more »