Coffee in Bed

There's a stain on my notebook
Where your coffee cup was
And there's ash in the pages
Now I've got myself lost
I was writing to tell you
That my feelings tonight
Are a stain on my notebook
That rings your goodbye

Through no fault of her own, my nurse last night spilled a cup of lukewarm coffee from atop my nightstand.... Down the side of the bed, on the sheets, the floor, the cords, the call button....

After I drank it, I fretted about premature labor, caffeine contractions, whether the beans were shade grown to protect songbirds, whether it was FreeTrade. ... (ok, not the last two. But I WAS worried about Baby Butler. It was decaf, but still...)

regardless, spill it did.

About an hour later, the coffee was still on the floor, and had saturated the side of the bed.

"They are NURSES" I thought "They are busy saving lives. I'm not going to push the red button for clean sheets."

But bedrest or not, I'm still pregnant!!! ...AND IT SMELLED. (It smelled sticky sweet, and not like in an uptempo Def Leppard way but grossly so.)

"I have a headache" I think. "I hate coffee. I'm laying here (lying here in fact, but to be truthful, in my mind I was grammatically incorrectly laying) "I'm laying here in smelly coffee hell. Why won't she come back, why isn't she here, what's going ON??"

So Doug comes in.

me: Hi (sullenly)
Him: Hi
me: Do you smell coffee? (accusingly)
Him: No
me: well, I do (nastily)
Him: Oh
me: It spilled (obviously)
Him: Oh, I'm sorry, do you want me to get you some more coffee?
me: No (petulantly)
Him: oh

me: It spilled and the nurse said she'd call housekeeping and they didn't come and there's coffee all over my bed, and the floor, and I've been here for AN HOUR and it SMELLS and I have a headache and I hate coffee and I don't know why she said she'd come change the sheets when she didn't and now I don't feel good and I'm so mad at her and it smells and I know it shouldn't have been there but I really wanted it and now it's spilled and all I can smell is coffee and it smells. (plaintively)
Him: oh. Do you want me to call the nurse?

Me: No, she said she'd come and I don't want to bother them. (irrationally)

Silence

Him: So what do you want me to do?
me: Make it stop smelling.

I'd love to tell you that I'm graciously reclining in bed like Mary Steenbergen in a Lifetime movie. That I only get angry with pretty non-face puffing tears and that my hair fans across the pillow and my lips are glistening with peach gloss. That we hold hands clasped in prayer for "our little angel" and I receive visitors in a linen white nightshirt with a brave face.

In reality, I watched Doug get on his hands and knees, gangly in his suit, and mop the floor with the worlds tiniest towel, and then do it all over again with antibacterial soap. And then wash the mattress side, change the sheets, and then get dinner. All while I'm hysterical because I feel so guilty (plus he's doing it all wrong)and he's snapping my head off because housekeeping should have handled it, he's hungry, and he really can't smell anything anyway.

It occurs to me that although together, for better or worse, we can handle anything, climb every mountain etc., I can ALSO see why spouses suddenly snap after 40 years and shoot one another.