Too Hot To Handle

It’s a funny thing really. When you were a baby you loved being warm because warmth imitated the conditions of the womb. Isn’t it interesting how it switches. I spent last night with a friend of mine in her parents extra condo. It was a nice place, a bit small but fine for their purposes, close to the airport and a decent place to spend the night. In fact it was more than decent, it was beautiful, fully furnished from Restoration Hardware, whose catalogue I routinely drool over.

And so I did not anticipate problems sleeping in the giant and beautiful bed that was in the guest bedroom, even though my friend and I would have to share. No problems that is until I got into bed. Oh, the bed itself was fine, don’t get me wrong, it was the temperature. I could not find a position that allowed air to circulate around my body. I was dripping in sweat within five minutes of getting into bed. I must have drifted off because I woke up when my friend got into bed. I mumbled something like “goodnight” and she answered me with “holy crap its hot in here”

Forward three hours later. I wake up again, my friend is no longer in bed. I am soaking with sweat. I tried to get back to sleep but it was simply too hot so I decided to wander around a little bit. Let me say that the heat was barely noticeable when one was walking around. It was only unbearable when trying to sleep. The bed was like a heat reflector, every ounce of heat that my body put out was reflected back at me by the down pillows, comforter and mattress pad. (and if you think I was under the comforter you’re crazy, I was lying on top of everything)

I decided to bite the bullet and get up and look for my friend. I could hear her faint snores, so I knew she was still in the house. I found her conked out on the sofa in the living room (with the overhead fan whirring). After some hemming and hawing and splashing cold water on my face and neck I owned up to the fact that there was really no way that I was getting back to sleep in that bed. I contemplated getting into the bed to read, but that idea was vetoed due to the fact that if I couldn’t sleep in the bed, reading wouldn’t be anymore comfortable.

I ultimately went down to get my ipod. I thought I’d watch some of the tv shows I have on there. But, rummaging through my purse I woke my friend. She said it was fine for me to turn on the tv, (and I believed her, at school she is routinely fast asleep with “Flavor of Love” on at full volume). I did and scrolled through the infomercials until landing on “the Fresh Prince of Bel Air”. After about 10 minutes of will smith and company I began to feel drowsy. The overhead fan was on and it was finally a comfortable temperature. I fell asleep in the chair I had been watching tv in.

We woke up to my cell phone alarm at 6:30 because I needed to take my friend to the airport (the whole point of this exercise) and go to work. Remember that I had about 6 hours of sleep all tolled and the longest I slept all at once was about three hours. We were both strangely energized. My friends mother called to ask how the night went and as we complained about the heat she said “why didn’t you turn on the AC?”

Well I feel sheepish. I spent a night of heat induced insomnia because I didn’t think to look for the thermostat. I really did graduate from both high school and college, but nope. No AC for me.

So today I will be pouring coffee into myself every hour on the hour. Oh yeah, and maybe getting some work done. Though I’m not really betting on the latter.