Movie night and a warm body to snuggle at bedtime

“Come up here and bring my dog before I freeze to death.” Such was the text message I received just after midnight last Saturday. The mercury had dipped deep into the single digits for the first time this season, and my wife’s overreaction was all but inevitable.

I had fallen peacefully and perfectly asleep in my beloved recliner as the credits rolled on the movie we’d spent the evening watching. It was a minor miracle I’d made it to the end. Movie watching is one of Kristin’s favorite hobbies, and she insists it should be one of mine as well. The truth is while I do enjoy a good thriller, comedy or drama every now and then, by and large whenever we actually have the time to sit down in front of the TV, I would almost always rather be engaged in one of my own favorite hobbies — sleeping.

With love being the ceaseless chain of compromise it must for a couple to coexist through the decades, I sit for at-home “movie nights” whenever I must for the sake of marital bliss. Ideally, the selection is so entrancing that Kristin, who lounges on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and the dog curled at her feet, never notices me nodding off.

Admittedly, my own viewing setup is clearly a recipe for failure. Feet up and head back with a knitted cotton afghan up to my armpits and a cat purring away on my lap, there is nothing about this posture that encourages even passive wakefulness. An ideal movie night sees Kristin delighted by what she’s just watched and me delighted at what I have dreamed about in the meantime.

It’s what comes after the movie that I fear and dread as Kristin invariably leaps up, declares, “It’s bedtime,” and demands I extract myself from the chair to march up a flight of stairs only to begin my descent into sweet dreams all over again. Note that my place in the chair, with the cat and the blanket, is perhaps the most comfortable spot in all the universe — so much so, in fact, if I were suddenly tapped to ride aboard a rocket on a four-year mission to Mars, I would simply ask only that my recliner, afghan and cat be allowed to accompany me and I’d be all in. Given an adequate diaper or other such “drainage system,” I’d sleep the whole way there and back.

My best strategy for dealing with Kristin’s unreasonable demands is to simply act as if I am too sound asleep to even hear her. This “playing possum” is admittedly a long shot and often ends with Kristin yanking the blanket from between me and the cat like a magician’s tablecloth. More often I just mumble, “OK, I’ll be up in a minute.” This, of course, is merely a play for more time. If I can stretch that minute long enough, she’ll eventually fall asleep herself, and I can remain in my cocoon until Frankie the dog wakes me at dawn for his breakfast.

That I remained nestled in my chair was of little consequence on this cold winter’s night. Rather than the loving embrace of her husband of 35 years, what Kristin was really after was the company of the dog. The curled embrace of a creature whose body temperature exceeds that of our own by several precious degrees is worth its weight in gold when the mercury bottoms out. I sent Frank upstairs and never heard another peep out of either of them until morning.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.