Being married

to The Wife, I've learned many things. Don't come between her and a mocha-chocka-lotta

thingie ground fresh from imported dark brown coffee beans first thing

in the morning ­ or any other time of day, for that matter. Its okay

for me to help clean the house but not okay for me to do laundry anymore.

Anytime I want to go out and treat her to a nice dinner and a movie is

just fine with her. And, oh yeah, I'm a Cover Hog.

There, I said

it. It's finally out in the open. Yes, I'm a Cover Hog. Pick any relationship

out there, and you'll find that one person participating in that relationship

is a Cover Hog. For all you closet Cover Hogs out there, they say that

admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.

I've been a Cover Hog since I was five years old, but it's not my fault.

The reason for my cover hogginess has a lot to do with the person I shared

a room with for the first eighteen years of life. That would be Twin Brother

Mark. Well ­ Mark and the Under-The-Bed Monster that lived in our

room.

When we moved

into our new house on Flamingo Drive, all us kids got to pick out our

own bedrooms 'cept me. I was the youngest and Twin Brother Mark was the

oldest so he picked out our room. He thought it was a good idea to pick

the bedroom at the rear of the house, the one with lots of windows overlooking

the swamp in the back yard. It would have been the coolest room in the

house if it hadn't been that it was already occupied by the Under-The-Bed

Monster.

As big as he

was, the Under-The-Bed Monster was scared of the light. Growing up, we

always had a jar of lightning bugs on the toy chest in the corner when

we went to sleep. The lightning bugs kept him at bay. Our back yard was

full of them ever spring, summer, and fall, flying all around the swamp.

Collecting them was an easy task for two energetic five-year-olds. As

long as we had our jar of lightning bugs on the toy chest, he would stay

well hidden under the bed. The problem came in the winter: no lightning

bugs down at the swamp.

The winter

was the only time the Under-The-Bed Monster came out. Once I put jelly

beans in the jar, but he wasn't fooled. He still came out after dark.

The next morning the jelly beans were all gone, but the Under-The-Bed

Monster wasn't. I think he likes jelly beans, least that's what Twin Brother

Mark told me.

At night you

could hear him move around the room, playing with all of our toys. In

the morning Mom would get mad at us for not cleaning our room before we

went to bed. She didn't believe us when we told her we did, and that the

Under-The-Bed Monster messed it all up again.

The first night

in our new Flamingo Drive house, Mom tucked us in bed. As she did she

said, "Sleep tight, and don't let the bed bugs bite."

"Great."

I thought, "I was just worried about the Under-The-Bed Monster. Now

I have to worry about Biting Bed Bugs too! I'll never get any sleep."

I pulled the

blanket up around my chin and tuck it in all around so none of it draped

over the side of the bed. If it did, the Under-The-Bed Monster, not to

mention all those Biting Bed Bugs, could climb up and bite me. In the

middle of the night, every night, Twin Brother Mark would reach over from

his twin bed and pull the covers off of me. Blankie and all! There I lay

in my PJ's, exposed to those Biting Bed Bugs and the Under-The-Bed Monster.

So you see,

my cover hogginess has nothing to do with me wanting The Wife to freeze

at night. No, it's just a matter of survival of the fittest. I learned

long ago, it's either me in a cocoon of sheets and covers or the Biting

Bed Bugs and the Under-The-Bed Monster. I think I can keep them at bay.

That is as long as Twin Brother Mark doesn't come for a visit.

Just a side

note for all you parents of twins out there. It's not cool to dress the

twins up in identical clothes. We don't like that. And don't even get

me started on the "you're twins, you can share all of your toys"

thing. One last comment about twins: Where is it written because twins

spend the first nine months together in a small cramped space, we have

to spend the next 18 years sharing the same small cramped bedroom space?

Just because we're twins doesn't mean we get along all the time. If you

asked my Mom, Twin Brother Mark and I were kicking each other from the

get go.

[Rick Ryckeley

is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

He can be reached at [email protected].]