Sleeping habits

T and I spend many Friday and Saturday nights playing holdem with a dozen or so friends. If we go two weeks without this ongoing poker game, it feels like something's missing. Growing up as the four-eyed Goody-two-shoes I was, I never would've imagined my grownup nights to be filled with so much gambling ($20 buy in when the girls play; I don't even want to know the buy in's when it's just testosterone at the table) and drinking. Such is life. At least the little kids who run and dance around us balance it all out... but is it weird that five-year olds include the word "wine" in their vocabulary?

Anyway, last weekend, we decided to sleep at Janet and Byong's palace in Virginia after our game because we were planning to hit the outlets the next day. As we got ready for bed, T instructed me to, "Lock the door."

"Why? No one's going to barge in here."

"Well, Janet might have to come in for something."

"Yeah, but she WOULD KNOCK, dontchathink? What if she's insulted that we felt the need to lock her out?"

"But if she knocks, then she wouldn't try to just come in anyway, so she would never have to know that we locked the door."

"It feels weird for me to lock the door, in someone else's house or our own. It feels so NOT OPEN. Like there's some secret. Like that one time you locked the door on me."

"Babe, I was in the bathroom."

"Still."

"Well, maybe it's because we had our house broken into when I was little; and my sister and I had a gun put to our heads when we got shoved in the closet."

Was he kidding? Sick and somewhat inappropriate jokes live in my man's head; and then they often spill out of his mouth. I shouldn't admit it, but I actually like his taking-it-too-far humor. But this wasn't funny. I was waiting for the, "Ha!" Turns out he wasn't joking after all. So now I try to lock our bedroom door for his sake when we sleep.

I have a feeling this whole survival instinct thing would live in him even without that childhood incident. I think it's a male thing.

My ex-roommate and dear friend, Blaine, says he doesn't have a "my side of the bed" thing. Instead, he simply has to sleep on the side of the bed furthest from the door. And if he's in a hotel room with two beds, he wants the bed furthest from the door. Why? It just might give him those extra few seconds needed to fend off any room invaders. For those of you who don't know, Blaine is a HUGE guy who really shouldn't have to worry about physical harm from the average man, so I found his thinking really fascinating.

I told T about Blaine's theory, and he agrees with it a little bit. T, however, doesn't have that feeling in hotel rooms because the doors seem so secure, but in our home? Well, I sleep closest to the door.

My man claims it's because he just cares about being closer to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure I believed him once he said, "And if anyone comes through our door, they'll get to you first - ha!"