How Old Is That in Dog Years?

Today is Old Dog's 55th birthday. As you may remember, I passed this milestone back in February, making him 5 and 1/2 months younger than me, a fact of which he frequently reminds me. I'm okay with that, since he looks several years older (due, he says, to raising 5 teenagers), a fact of which I frequently remind him.

Several people have asked me why I call my beloved "Old Dog," so I thought I'd re-publish the original post in which he was christened.

Bedtime Story

After 11 blissful years of marriage, my husband and I are having troubles in bed. I refer, of course, to the two issues that confront every couple – snoring and blanket allocation.

The first time I ever saw Bill doze, I noticed that he had the most adorable little – it wasn’t even a snore, really, more like a tiny, soft catch in the back of his throat followed by an even softer expulsion of air. His face, relaxed from the cares of the day, looked so peaceful, his dark eyelashes lying in crescents on his cheeks, his chiseled lips appearing to smile, even in slumber.

Apparently, even sleep has a courtship phase, because the guy I lie beside now sucks in great a swallow of air, gargles it somewhere between his nose and his throat and then expels it with an eruption guaranteed to jar the soundest sleeper from her beauty rest.

Even more annoying is the conversation this spawns.

“Bill,” I say, “You’re snoring.”

“What?” He draws another raucous breath.

“Snoring,” I repeat. “You’re snoring. Turn over.”

“What?”

“Turn over.” I give his shoulder a shove.

“What?”

I think briefly about holding a pillow over his face – not long enough to do any real harm, just enough to break the cycle, but decide that’s a slippery slope best not trodden upon. (Lest you think I’m unique, you should know that, in an unscientific survey, 75% of married women polled confessed to thinking about holding a pillow over their husband’s snoring face on one or more occasions.)

Instead, I shout, “YOU’RE SNORING! ROLL OVER!”

With a miffed sound, he turns onto his side and sinks effortlessly back into slumber while I lie awake, fuming.

The second issue is blanket sharing.

Like most women, I am married to a creature whose body mass exceeds my own. Theoretically, this should give him a real advantage in acquiring a solid share of the blankets at night. However, due to the fact that I was raised in a family of seven children and shared a bed from the time I left my crib until I left for college, while he had only a single sister, I am more skilled at “tuck and roll” than he.

At least, this used to be true. For the first ten winters of our marriage, he complained that he froze while I transformed myself into a human jelly roll with the covers.

Lately, though, I notice he’s figured out the trick, and our nightly struggles for the blankets would make a WWF match look like kindergartners jostling at nap time.

I still adore him, though, and out of this, have only one question:

If you were going to learn a new trick, old dog, why couldn’t it be “roll over”?