Night of the Six Foot Hot Dog

The weather is cooling off and we’re heading into what we all hope is autumn. It reminds me of the night of the six foot hot dog.

In our first year of marriage, we decided to move out of an apartment and move into a “cute” little rent house. It was very small. It also lacked air conditioning and adequate heat. It even lacked insulation. Of any kind. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter. October and November weren’t so bad, until what passes for winter around here decided to set in.

When the nights got cold, we broke out the dual control queen size electric blanket. What a wonderful device. Especially considering there were two different styles of sleeping in one bed.

We would huddle around the gas space heater in the living room until it was just about time to hit the hay. While I was brushing my teeth, I would go turn my side of the blanket on to about five or six, depending on the relative temperature. When the time came to bury ourselves under the covers, my side was toasty warm, and I turned the control down to a comfy two or three. My wife’s side was nothing. So she would turn the dial up to 10 and the little indicator light would throb in the dark, trying to warm the blanket and my spouse all at once.

One night, as we lay sleeping, I became aware of my shoulder starting to draw up and getting tighter. As I came more conscious, the sensation of uncomfortable heat became nearly unbearable. When I became fully awake, I noticed that from the middle of my head all the way down to my feet, half of the electric blanket was rolled neatly in a tube, and the control was still apparently pulsating on 10. The heat was cooking my back, and I am not sure if the heat was causing my muscles to spasm, or if the electromagnetic field generated by the blanket was interrupting my neural impulses. Whichever it was, I was very uncomfortable with all the twitching and sweating.

As I extracted myself from the giant bratwurst cooker, I stole a glance at my bride, sleeping quietly and contentedly with naught but a sheet and quilt on her, free of the throbbing mantle of heat. It looked as if she had rolled the electric blanket up neatly and placed it alongside me.

I thought new brides were supposed to derive pleasure from cooking
FOR their new husband.