The Tale of the Early Bathrobe

Since certain beloved sisters are stuck at home for various reasons, I figure it behooves me to update this blog more than normal.  As I have just hit my late-afternoon crash-in-a-chair point, I think this is probably a good time to tell the Tale of the Early Bathrobe.

It begins not so very long ago (or very far away), when my wonderful husband determined that he was going to take over the late night/early morning visits to the bedroom next door to assist our grandmother when she rang her bell.  Actually, at first he was assisting when she would call, but we learned something about having her call us.  Because she is a little hard of hearing, when she calls she knows she has to wake us up, so she calls very loudly to make sure we can hear her.  When you wake up in the middle of the night because someone is shouting your name, it tends to make for an adrenaline rush akin to stomping on the brakes because that big semi is drifting over into your lane.

No, I don't think I'm exaggerating.  Much.

At any rate, Ben decided to give Grandma a little silver bell and encouraged her to ring it because he said he'd have no problem hearing it and it wouldn't be the same as a shout in the middle of the night.  The very first night she rang, he leaped straight out of bed because he wanted to get over there very quickly to reassure her that ringing the bell was a very good idea and he would hear immediately when she rang.

The problem was, he was in his underclothes.

Now, ordinarily it wasn't that big of a deal to him.  He'd gotten in the habit of leaving a pair of jeans at the end of the bed and throwing those on before going next door to help Grandma.  That night, however, he'd forgotten and put his pants in the wash (which we've been keeping in a nice laundry basket under the bathroom sink since there's no good place for it in our room).  So a 3:00, after leaping out of bed with his eyes still closed, he flipped on the light and then went racing around the bedroom searching desperately for a pair of pants while shouting, "Coming!  I'm coming, Grandma!"

Grandma can't hear us even when we shout from the other room, but I think Ben was hoping she'd at least hear his voice and know he was awake.

After finally locating a pair of pants (and hopping out the door putting them on), he helped Grandma and then came back to flop on the bed and say, "I really don't feel so good."

He'd gotten up so fast and run around so much that his heart was racing and he was all sort of clammy and feeling sick to his stomach, the usual reaction when your blood has been rudely re-routed and given a hefty dose of adrenaline.  He was finally able to catch his breath and relax enough to go back to sleep, but it was about 4:30 before I think we were both sleeping soundly again.

The next day, my sister Elizabeth came over and she took me out for a quick shopping trip to the local Meijer while Ben was at work.  I'd been planning to go out birthday shopping, but it seemed to me a crucial necessity in Ben's life had become a bathrobe.  We found one fairly quickly, but then I had to make a decision...

To give early, or not to give early.

I sort of debated with myself about this the rest of the day.  Because I knew if I gave it to him right away, I wouldn't have anything for him to open on his birthday and I really love giving people gifts on their birthday.  On the other hand, if I didn't give it to him, he had the potential to spend another two weeks or so leaping out of bed and trying to get dressed before helping Grandma.  So I hid it in the closet and kept debating.

That night we were getting ready for bed and just as Ben was getting undressed, Grandma called him to help her with some problem she was having with her TV remote.  Ben put his clothes back on and went to help and I thought, "This is just ridiculous.  I'm going to feel guilty hiding that bathrobe every single time he has to get up for two weeks.  It's not worth it just to have a package for him to open on his birthday!"

So I dug the brand new robe out of the closet and spread it out over the end of the bed.  And it was worth it to see his face light up when he came back in and said, "What's this?  How'd you manage to go get this?!"

He's been using it every single night.  At first for some reason it attracted a lot of static electricity and he would snap, crackle, and pop with little sparks when he would come walking in while it was dark; but that seems to have worn off, sadly.  It was kind of fun calling him Static Man.  

I'm very glad he's had it the past few weeks.  Maybe I can just think up something else for him to open Saturday...