A Word Edgewise |
 |
A Word Edgewise |
|
Last Updated 06/30/05
For more literature go
to Clendenin Books
Email: mjclen@our-town.com
SLIPPIN INTO BED AT CHRISTMAS
We are going to spend Christmas with our daughter and family in
Floresville again this year. Last year we had a new adventure in their home.
Maybe not an uncommon adventure for some, but trying to sleep between
satin sheets was quite an adventure for this old married couple.
I lived through the Great Depression, reading by a kerosene lamp, darting
to a cold outhouse every winter morning, walking across pastures to school.
Cooking on a wood stove felt good in cold weather in wintertime.
I learned to drive a stick-shift car with no heater or air conditioner,
taught by a dad who was too scared to say a word once I shifted out of neutral.
I traveled out of state at a relatively early age
and learned that life did not end at the Texas border.
I raised three beautiful children without the aid of disposable diapers.
I even saw men making moon tracks--in spite of the fact that Aunt Effie
Swanzy vowed it was a hoax. She
said they just made those pictures somewhere in Mexico (she never did admit
there were two Mexicos, Old and New) where the deserts had moon-like scenes.
Even before a birthday in late December, I thought
I had experienced most every normal occurrence--but I was wrong.
I had never experienced trying to sleep between satin sheets.
On Christmas in Floresville, grandson Adrian gave
up his bed to us. Mind you, it was
before Christmas, so he did it without grumbling. He had even "cleaned" his room for us--and it
looked beautiful. The emerald green
satin comforter with pillow cases, shams, and sheets to match the pretty green
curtains made the room look like it was straight out of McCalls Magazine.
The first night was the worst--maybe because Ray
and I didn't know what to expect, didn't know the hazards of sleeping between
sheets as slick as queen-size banana peels.
We even oohed and ahhed at the smooth feel as we slid non-stop between
the green folds and tried to catch the pillows long enough to fluff them.
Fatigue was with us that first night, too.
After all, we had driven to Louisiana on Monday, back to Stephenville on
Wednesday, did our laundry on Thursday and driven to Floresville, 30 miles
southeast of San Antonio on Friday. Sleep
came quickly. But after not more
than 30 minutes of blessed oblivion, I was awakened by a draft.
A few of the usual tugs at cover, common behavior by Ray, had resulted in
no cover at all on my side of the bed.
Adrian was sleeping under the satin comforter, on
the floor in the living room--he had to have some of that luxury.
We had put a quilt on top of the sheet.
I began hunting for the quilt. I
knew where the sheet was. Ray was
rolled up in it. They don't make
material slick enough that he cannot roll up like a window shade.
My customary defense against that is to hold on to a corner, but that
satin had slipped through my clinched fist--it was still clinched, the muscles
permanently set.
I found the quilt off the end of the bed on the
floor, just beginning to crawl under the bathroom door.
After retrieving it, and securing one end of the quilt under the foot of
the mattress, I was foolish enough to think the puzzle was solved.
Then I began hunting my pillow in order to go back to sleep in comfort. It was off my side of the bed headed for the closet.
I put it back on and held it with both hands to keep it from climbing up
over the headboard before I could get to sleep.
Maybe, an hour later, I was blasted out of a light
doze, dreaming that the whole world was made of whipped cream and I was just a
shred of coconut--that was the deepest sleep of the night, by the way--but I was
blasted out of that doze by a terrible, scratching, clashing noise!
I thought Santa Clause had a wreck on the roof.
Sitting up to discover the source of the noise, I finally decided that
Ray, in a habitual stroll to the bathroom, had kicked a big sea shell kept on
the floor to prop open the hall door when the bathroom was not in use. The cocoon of satin wrapped around him did not protect his
toe. The shell had slammed into the
bathtub and ricocheted off his foot with a crash followed by a deep groan.
Thinking
it was an opportunity to rescue the quilt from the floor at the end of the bed
again, I stepped out of bed and onto something strange on the floor.
I couldn't help but think of the nine-inch gecko that environmentally
conscious daughter kept in the house to eat bugs. The big lizard would plaster himself on the wall behind the
china closet or refrigerator during the daylight hours and come out to eat bugs
at night. When he got the bug
population under control, Melissa caught him extra grasshoppers to supplement
his diet.
Anyway, it turned out that what I had stepped on
was a bag of candy that had slid out from under the bed--remember, Adrian had
cleaned the room. Don't tell me he
had SATIN under the bed, too. Maybe
not, but knowing the danger of looking under it, I didn't check.
Ray had unwound to go to the bathroom, so I rescued the sheet and re-made
the bed--it looked so deceptively pretty.
I thought that everything that could happen with satin sheets had
happened--but about that time a propulsion of satin struck me across the eyes.
Ray was trying to re-fit the fitted corner over the mattress and it had
slipped out of his hand.