The Signal

After our experience with the breath freshening strips, it took a few days for Rebecca to "recover". Her recovery happened to coincide perfectly with my falling ill with the flu. I've had "colds" before, but I guess I have never really had the flu because it really knocked me on my ass. I was touring a construction site last Friday when my back started to ache. I went to get in our SUV afterwards, and I could barely lift my legs. I initially thought my back had gone out from sleeping in the kids' beds, but I'm guessing now that this was the start of the flu. It's been working its way through me, and almost a week later I still feel in a daze.. almost like I'm stoned.

As for sex, two nights ago I was feeling like we should have action. We had only been intimate once since I got back from my trip. I guess I felt obligated to try to not end up being one of those couples who slowly stops having sex. When we were in bed Monday night, I tried to initiate things with Rebecca. I guess having a snotty, feverish, somewhat incoherent husband (who couldn't move due to back pain) putting the moves on her just didn't do it for her. She shut me down, and I rolled over believing (between bouts of the cold sweats) that we were doomed to drift apart (Remember... I was fevered). I had a hard time sleeping due to a very uncomfortable back and fever as well as worrying about our lack of intimacy. That's when I remembered something we used to do in the earlier years of our marriage. When we sleep, we like to spoon, and sometimes when one of us would roll over wanting to become the "spoonee" instead of the "spooner", we would give a signal by bumping our ass to the other's ass. This would remind the other person to roll over and assume the spooning position. We did this for years, but since the kids, haven't really used the signal.

I decided that night to give it a try, and I "bumped" Rebecca's ass with mine. The first signal made her move away to give me more room. The second attempt had the same result. Finally, on my third signal, she must have remembered its significance. She rolled over and slipped her arm under mine to cuddle my back. She gave me a quick spoon-hug and I was finally able to get some sleep.