Snorage Wars

Let the record show that Val has been a bit under-the-weather with a virus wafted over her face by Hick's breather. I'm sure that was how I contracted it. I am not around people, save a handful each day in assorted convenience stores. I know not to touch my face after I've been out, until my hands are washed. I veer away from coughing people, or hold my breath until their germs have settled.

I even avoided the Hickovirus when he was at his most contagious, starting on Friday, November 2nd. I made sure I wasn't in the path of his exhalations. Was careful of sanitizing my hands after touching the remote beside the La-Z-Boy, and sink faucets, and the handle of FRIG II. I'm virtually a one-woman staff of my own Center for Disease Control. I stop short of manufacturing my own vaccines, though.

So, with Hick not admitting to feeling much better, but sounding like he was knock-knock-knockin' on death's door, then turning the corner...I felt like I was home free. Surely a man can't be contagious for 8 days. Well. Hick is no regular man.

I started feeling not-so-great on Friday. Chills. A little pain in my right lung and right ear. The side exposed to His Royal Hickness in the marriage bed. I can only surmise that Hick's potent virus got into his breather, which he hasn't been cleaning since he didn't feel good, and set up shop inside. To waft out at night, upon Hick's expelled breath, to invade my orifices and mucous membranes.

Anyhoo...I've had much worse sicknesses. But I dared to mention to Hick, "I don't feel very good today." And that just-escaped-the-Grim-Reaper's-clutches Hick had the nerve to say, "Huh. You just have a cold."

It's hard to sleep with congestion. It's harder to sleep with a big bulky man-arm shoved up under your pillows. Leave it to Hick to choose this trying time to burrow under my nearly-nodding noggin. Sometimes, he's tricky about it. I returned from the bathroom, having consumed extra fluids all day and evening to combat my sickness, and settled in for two more hours sleep before I had to arise and prepare for a routine 6-month office visit to keep my prescription train running.

Ahh...under the warm quilt with added blanket on top. My pillows just right. I was drifting, drifting...

SCRTCH SCRTCH SCRTCH!

WHAT in the infernal Not-Heaven WAS that?

Oh. Just Hick, scratching at the underside of my pillow. As much as I'd like to give him credit for being an evil mastermind, I cannot. He's always done this crap. Some people tap their fingers, jiggle their leg, crack their knuckles. Hick scratches whatever is handy. Like the bottom of the table beside the La-Z-Boy. I don't know why. He denies that he does it.

When Hick pulls this stunt when I'm sleeping, I've been known to reach my hand back over my shoulder, grab his wrist, and get downright indignant about it. This time, I didn't have the strength. I was almost in dreamland when I snapped awake in a nightmare.

"Get your hand out from under my pillow!"

I didn't shout. But it was my stern teacher-voice. The scratching stopped momentarily. Started again. Then stopped. I can only guess that Hick fell into a deeper sleep and accidentally stopped tormenting me.

When the alarm went off for me to wake up, Hick said, "You were talking in your sleep."

"No. I knew exactly what I was saying. I told you to get your hand out from under my pillows."

"I didn't have my hand under your pillows."

Hick needs a framed needlepoint that reads: "Lying Doesn't Make It So."