I can sleep anywhere, but I usually don't.

Buckle up folks, I'm starting off with another stupid band story!

When I was 17, I joined an all ages marching band (DCA group for you band nerds) that ran out of Florida. It was semi-professional and tons of fun, but this is all irrelevant to the point of the story which is that during the summer we took a trip to Allentown, Pennsylvania for the finals of that year's competition. It was there that I shared a hotel room with two great friends. Yep, they really were two amazing guys, which is why it was such a great moment to open the door of the hotel room and see the single, queen sized bed. Now I don't really recall how it was determined who would sleep where, but I very much remember that due to the extremely high occupancy that the hotel had run out of extra pillows and blankets.

And that's the story of how for 3 nights during the summer when I was 17, I slept on the floor of a hotel with the comforter off the bed, and a phone book for a pillow. I don't always sleep, but when I do, I sleep hardcore.

Over the years, my sleeping quarters have become much less painful, but none the less a place where I feel like I'm the odd man out.

I guess it really started my freshman year of college. I moved into an apartment with my good friend from high school. Much like any college apartment, we had some furniture, but most of it was scrounged up second hand from other people or simply the stuff we'd had forever. For me, that meant my bedroom stuff. My old twin bed, which was actually part of a bunk bed set that my brother and I shared on and off as kids, and is now William's bed. One night stand, which I think was my Grandma's, and the newest thing I owned was my computer desk. We were very excited to be out on our own, and all was well till I got a phone call from my Dad that would change my life forever.

"Your brother is getting a new bed, do you want his?"

My brother had a full size bed. You could tell he was more adult than me because he had two night stands instead of one. This was a pretty cool moment for a college freshman out in the world. I got that bed moved in, and that's where it all started to go down hill. You see, every night I spent in that bed for the next 2 years was magical. As I've hinted at (and more to the point, since as far as I can figure, 99% of my current readers know me - tell your friends to stop on by!) I'm a short man, and for me, being in a full sized bed alone felt like I had my own little island. So much space! I could have every book from every class I was taking on the bed and opened with all my notebooks and still have plenty of room to sleep! Amazing! No one told me when I was growing up, to enjoy the feeling of stretching out in bed.

A year after the bed became mine, I bought a pug. A tiny little puppy pug, and she and I shared my little island for a year. I had lots of fun with her. She used to love to snuggle up under my chin, so sometimes I'd be a bit mean and turn around so she'd walk all the way around me to get back into her spot...at which point I'd turn around again.

About a year later is when Melissa entered the picture. Now for quite some time, my pug did not approve of the new lady hanging around. To be certain we were aware of this at night, she would sleep between us horizontally. So the bed looked like an "H". It was slightly less comfortable than I was used to, but there was a woman in the bed so I opted to not complain.

Shortly after, pug 2 entered the picture, which also added the 4th body in the bed at night. My first pug was totally okay with Melissa by this point, having decided that Melissa was not going anywhere and that Melissa would give her treats sometimes, but for whatever reason the sleeping arrangements were getting worse. By 2005, about 6 years after getting my amazing island paradise, I was sleeping (truthfully) with about 2 inches of my ass off the bed. Enough to know that it's off the bed, but not enough to feel like you're about to fall. Folks, if you're gonna sleep with your ass hanging off the bed, 2 inches is pretty damn perfect.

When we moved to Idaho, my Dad made us a deal. Give him the full size bed, and he'd buy us whatever new one (reasonable priced) we wanted. Perfect. King size it is! AND! For about 3 years I enjoyed the kind of sleep that you can only get from a bed that has enough space to accommodate your entire body. Then Melissa got pregnant...and a new pal joined us in bed.

Pregnancy does a lot to a woman's body. I empathize, I really do. So when Melissa said she needed a body pillow, we got one, and I know it helped her quite a great deal. Especially in the later months. I, however, couldn't help but notice that my awesome happy funtime king bed was suddenly sectioned off in a way that every part of my body was at the very edge of the bed. It wasn't so bad, until I'd wake up and my face was just right at the edge of nothing as if all the oxygen on top of the bed was used up so I was struggling to get air from the side.

Then after the second pregnancy, when the body pillow was no more, the night time crying adventures began. Sometimes William, sometimes Carter. We'd get them in bed with us, they'd calm down and often fall asleep, which is when I realized, "Hey! Cool! I have no room at all! The fact that I'm still on the bed at all is simply the bi-product of clinging on to the shirt of my child and hoping that I don't take us both down...lest we start this all over again!" So now, I hate the bed a little bit. I never know when I'm going to be able to use it as a bed. I no longer think of it as the place for sleep. That honor has moved to a different piece of furniture.

I guess the point of all this, and what my advice would be to anyone in the same position as me...

You can get some amazing beds if you're willing to spend over $1000 on it. Lots of support, I hear that memory foam stuff can be amazing...but for me? I'm investing in the couch.