I know I’m not the only one who peruses the magazine titles while waiting in line at the local grocery store. Some make me chuckle out loud while others make we cringe. I laugh at the titles on romance magazines that boldly state titles like, “New Tricks that will drive him crazy”, or “Discover the ways to drive him wild!” As if after millenniums on earth, anything can be new. Indoor plumbing is the exception of course; chamber pots were murder.

I was intrigued by a recent article in the British press that studied the success of relationships based on sleeping positions. Clearly this journalistic gem only studied normal well adjusted people and not parents of newborns. We know they are bleary-eyed, irritable, and will sleep in front of a refrigerator in the middle of the night if there’s a rug present. As I opened the article, I mused to myself, “This is going to be insightful if not downright hilarious.” I wondered what the article would say about my wife who sleeps with a pillow on her head and in a fetal position. If she were to be rolled up any smaller, she’d be a sweet roll. I would have used the analogy of sushi if my wife had been Japanese, same thing.

Me, I sleep straight on the edge of the bed like I’ve been given a mere two-by-four to sleep on. Don’t ask me why? I think it has something to do with quick escapes. Nevertheless, as I studied the diagrams in the informative article I learned we should be only marginally happy. If you are touching (the article claims) while you sleep, you have a 94% happiness quotient. Not touching, 68% satisfied. Back-to-back not touching, 74% happy. Face to face touching 100% happy.

Are you kidding, face to face AND touching? Now I can see the first year being barnacles on the ship of life, but after that no way! If my wife and I were to be face to face and breathing on each other, one of us would wake up convinced the other had a midnight snack of possum road kill. I think I’ll just be satisfied skewing the numbers at 68% satisfied. 30 years of marriage is nothing to trifle with. Of course the real statistic killer is the husband who was once asked the success of his marriage of forty years. Without hesitation he replied, “Separate beds.” The inquirer surprised said, “That really works?” The man replied, “it sure has for me, hers is in Ohio, mine’s in Florida.” However the only statistic that really counts is not how you sleep, but how much your wife sleeps. I know this because if my wife gets anything less than eight hours of sleep, my marital satisfaction numbers are in the chamber pot.