Half a Degree From Disaster

I’m jealous of my husband’s ability to sleep.

Every night we perform our standard pre-slumber ritual: thermostat, check; ceiling fan, check; tower fan, check; window A/C roaring like a small jet engine, check. We arrange the blankets, adjust the bed incline, and settle in.

He gets out his book, reads for a while, and then—poof—he’s out. Not instantly, but close enough to be insulting. Aside from a trip to the bathroom or two, he sleeps like a Golden Retriever: blissfully unconscious, utterly content, and only occasionally trotting off to relieve himself before returning to the exact same spot with the exact same serene expression.

Me? I get a respectable three or four hours before the Hot-Cold Olympics begin. Too warm, too cold, too something. He enjoys a five-degree comfort window. I apparently get half a degree. Maybe less. One whisper of temperature change and my entire body revolts like it’s staging a coup.

And it’s not as though we haven’t made heroic efforts. Our bedroom is set up exactly as the sleep experts command. Central air. Window A/C. Ceiling fan. Tower fan. Adjustable bed tilted like I’m preparing for reentry. Layers of blankets that could double as a geological cross-section. If NASA ran a sleep lab, it would look something like our room.

NASA sleep lab

Still, no matter what I do, I spend the night tossing—freezing, roasting, sweating, shivering, thrashing—usually all within the span of twelve minutes.

Most nights, I keep my misery to myself. There’s nothing he can do anyway. Men love to leap into action with solutions—“Have you tried…?” “Maybe if you…”—and unless he’s planning to personally re-calibrate the internal thermostat Mother Nature installed with a blindfold and a few spare parts, there is no solution. No point upsetting him.

But this morning.

Oh, this morning.

After days of not sleeping more than a sliver at a time, I tossed—lightly, gracefully, even charitably—and he asked, in a tone suggesting my single movement had rattled the very foundation of his peaceful dawn, “What are you doing?”

And that was it.

Something ancient and feral rose up inside me. I snapped at him like a rabid fox with nursing young. Possibly with glowing eyes. Hard to say. I was tired.

“Sorry I’m so uncomfortable and tired,” I barked, with the sort of venom usually reserved for exes and malfunctioning printers.

Because honestly? This entire situation feels like a design flaw. You would think that millions of years of evolution would have ironed out the whole hot-cold-hot-cold-boil-freeze business—but no. Here we are, still in Beta Test mode.

Perhaps it wasn’t an issue for prehistoric woman. Perhaps when she experienced a hot flash, she simply stepped out of the cave into the cool, refreshing night air… and was promptly eaten by a dirk-toothed tiger. No more hot flashes. Problem solved. With brutally efficient measures like that, Mother Nature clearly saw no need to refine the system.

But I, personally, am ready—more than ready—to move on to the next phase of this trial. I would like to graduate out of Beta. I would like the full release version. Preferably one with temperature regulation that doesn’t require a seven-fan cross-breeze and a personal weather station beside the bed.

And maybe—just maybe—a full night of sleep.