Remember when I told you about the two times I almost choked to death because of acid-reflux and I was so scared and blah, blah, blah? I kind of went on about it. That second incident occurred as a wake-up call. Literally. It woke me up out of a dead sleep at 5am.
I began to resent my bed, whom I call Phil. I thought Phil had tried to kill me. As if he was twisting up the blanket and wrapping it around my neck. Bad bed!
So Phil and I went to relationship counseling and he ultimately apologized and I forgave him. But not really.
You know how someone you love tries to kill betrays you and you think you’re over it, but really you keep your feelings of mistrust inside and let it fester into a small tornado of hatred and resentment until it one day manifests itself unexpectedly?
Maybe I overdid the sweet tone of voice as I’d crawl into Phil each night, saying things like, “I love you. You’re the King. Hold me.” etc. But he knew something was wrong. Things had changed; he could tell.
“If you love me,” Phil asked one night, “why did you start wearing your pajama bottoms to bed?”
“Well, Phillip,” (he hates it when I call him that) “I’ve been feeling…cold lately.”
I didn’t want to tell him that if he attempted murder again and the paramedics burst in to save my life, I was not going to be resuscitated without pants.
Phil began sending me instant messages during the day:
Bed: ru mad at me? 
Me: no
Bed: wutz rong?
Me: nothing. cu tonite.
Then one night I woke up from a nightmare in which Phil was stuffing a pillow down my throat and I couldn’t breathe. I woke up more angry at him than ever. It felt so real. I worked myself up into a frenzy that whole next day. The only way I could get over my fear of him was to give him a taste of his own medicine, the springy bastard.
Payback Time
I snuck up the stairs and jumped onto him with all my weight, knocking the wind out of him. Then I gave him a wedgie. Not just a casual everyday wedgie, but a SUPREME wedgie.
I slipped that bad boy between the mattress and my pillow and I gave it to him good.
He started crying like a baby, whining about how he had never tried to kill me and that it was my acid-reflux that caused the choking.
Acid-reflux my eye. I laughed at him as I ate lasagna and half a box of Ho Hos just before going to bed and immediately falling asleep. And I’m not dead yet, so I guess I showed him.
Phil and I aren’t speaking any more. Oh sure, we’re civil in front of company, but otherwise, we just go about our own business.
Now he just pouts all day. Well, let him. He can take his timeout and think long and hard about what he’s done. It’s not like I’m more comfortable sleeping on an incline to keep the acid from crawling up out of my stomach. And I do miss our nights of drinking until we were three sheets to the wind. But we’re talking about my life here.
When Phil can apologize with more sincerity and demonstrate complete nonhomicidal tendencies, then I’ll think about going back to a pillow-only situation. But until then, it’s Zantac and wedgies for the rest of my life.
Wow, i hear you.
Omeprozole (generic Prilosec) 40 mgs every morning.
Phil will bother you no more.