I Felt Something Cold and Squishy Stuck to My Butt Cheek in Bed

I spend a lot of time in bed during the course of a normal day. For starters, I’m in it for 7–8 hours each evening while sleeping. Then, I sit on it for much of the day doing my writing with my laptop and my comfy little lap table. My daughter just got me that for Father’s Day and it’s a game changer. It has a little beanbag padding on the underside of it. Stellar Father’s Day gift for a writer.

After a break in the late afternoon to early evening to make dinner, I’m often back on my bed writing and hanging out with my Bride. She’s usually home from her counseling practice by about this time, unless it’s a later evening. We watch shows together and enjoy hanging out with our little dog, Libby.

Once Mai falls asleep around 9:30 or 10 pm, I start the night shift on doing some additional writing. Then it’s time to sleep and once again, in our bed. I venture to say I spend at least 18–20 hours a day either laying in or sitting on our bed.

This makes it difficult for anything surprising or unusual to happen in said bed. There was a huge exception to this one night, some years ago. The events leading up to this unforgettable evening are vague and sketchy at best, but the event that happened and every detail about it will never be erased from my mind.

After hanging out most of the evening and likely watching one of our NBA teams play, my Bride retired to get her nightly slumber. I’m sure I either watched another late game, played around on social media, or did both.

Somewhere between midnight at 1 am, I felt sleepy and decided to pull the plug on the evening. I settled in to get a good night’s rest. Little did I know, this was to be no ordinary night of restful sleep.

I had hoped to pull an all-nighter. No, not THAT kind of all-nighter. By the time I hit 40 years old, an all-nighter to me meant sleeping through the entire evening without having to wake up to take a piss.

I am one of those people who cannot go back to sleep if I have to take a whizz. It’s better just to resign myself to my fate, stumble through the darkness to the bathroom, and hope I have no casualties with my toes before making it back to bed.

An all-nighter was NOT in the cards, this evening. But it had nothing to do with piss. However…

I woke up for some reason and it felt like the middle of the night. I rolled over and felt something stuck to my butt cheek. I felt this because I sleep naked. Not for any real big reason. Not to be sexy. But because I’m Italian and I run REALLY hot at night.

I’m also one of those weirdos who have covers, no matter if I sweat through my sleep many nights. A sheet won’t just do it either. There has to be some weight to the comforter, or two lighter ones plus sheets. Sure, I might be a high-maintenance sleeper. But let’s stick to the story, here.

So while my Bride is sleeping next to her Foot-Long-Spicy-Italian, she has no idea the panic that’s about to hit her beloved husband. After I rolled over, I felt something stuck to my butt cheek, as I mentioned before. In a wine-buzzed, Melatonin-infused, just being awoken state of mind, I silently freak out.

I SHIT THE BED! I had hoped that was just a fart, earlier. But clearly, I had overplayed my hand. Fuck. What now? Do I jump up, start yelling and screaming, throw the covers off the bed and wake my Bride up, while trying to explain what happened?

This would not only freak her out, but our kids would likely hear the commotion and get scared too. Ok. Think McFly, think. What’s the best way out of this situation without being disgusting? I was in uncharted territory here. This was a decade or so before Amber Heard. What the fuck was I going to do?

I calmed myself a bit and decided that the first thing was to pull the small foreign intruder off of my butt cheek. Then I’d have to plot my next move. Jesus Kevorkian, I almost wished I was dead at that point. All right, just make your move. Where are your balls?

I ever so gently picked up the hitchhiker on Provencio Hill and it did NOT do much for my state of panic. It was cold. It was squishy. Yet, it was not as solid as I had first anticipated it would be. Hmmm.

I rolled it around a little between my thumb and pointer finger. There was something somewhat familiar about this. I developed a theory about this, but more research was required. Against my better judgment, I slowly brought this unidentified sticky object close to my nose. It smelled fruity.

This was encouraging, as my worst-case scenario option after a couple of sniffs quickly disappeared. I suddenly realized where I knew this smell from. My Bride’s penchant for snacking on gummy bears while watching TV just filled me with relief. Oh my god, this could have been so much worse.

I laughed to myself about this entire debacle and couldn’t wait until morning to tell my Bride about how her rogue gummy bear fooled me into thinking I had shit the bed. The fact it had stuck to my butt cheek and woke me in a panic was nothing short of comedy gold. I ate the gummy bear and fell back into a blissful slumber. &:^)