Aaaaahhhh.....

...dang, I hate when Frankie sneaks into the bed room, leans over, nose inches away from mine and begins to speak.  She knows that scares the begeezes out of me.

Frankie:  "What are you doing down there?"
Me:  "Well, I was sleeping."
Frankie:  "No silly, I mean down there."

She is pointing toward the foot of the bed.  I discover my head, neck and shoulders are no longer on the pillows, I have scrunched myself into a floppy, messy ball.  Kind of like a raggedy Ann or Andy doll.  What am I doing down there?

I used to get indigestion quite a bit at bedtime, and I read on the internet that if you lift the headboard off the floor and put big chunks of wood under it, slanting the bed, you will not get acid re-flux.  (Sorry to be discussing such things early in the morning.  I hope I've not spoiled you appetite.)  So I decided to do that. I'm sure I wrote here in my blog the experience I had trying to get the wood under the headboard in the first place.

I had great hopes this was going to help my affliction.

However, I must confess, like Frankie this morning, I have discovered myself almost at the bottom of the bed every morning, and have pondered this from time to time.  But, never tried to think it through until Frankie asked about my downward slide this morning.

I've come to the conclusion, humans are not meant to sleep at an angle.  We are meant to lie flat, and carrying that a bit further, who invented the pillow, the very first 'slant' our bodies adjusted to?  And, when?  Surely the cave man was not concerned about acid re-flux, at first he didn't even have fire.  I imagine finding a cave, food and clothing were his primary concerns.  What were the first pillows made from.  I know mattresses were at times simple boards, or straw, often times not even bound together so that folks had to re-adjust the straw in able to make the bed comfortable for sleeping.  Oh, and imagine, the bugs...imagine the bug bites.

Somebody must have thought one day, (probably a tired, cranky wife and mother) she was not putting her head on straw...one more night...took the goose feathers from that evening's dinner, threw an old piece of cloth around them and for the first time had a good night's sleep. Hence, sleeping at an angle was born.

Hmmm, I'm sure it was more comfortable, and probably warmer, too.  However, did this simple invention bring on the first 'crook in the neck', did folks find themselves in the morning, sleeping just below that pillow meant to make sleeping better?  I'm starting to think so.  Over time, and generations later we adjusted to pillows.  Down, feather, eventually foam, and other space age fillers.  Then we moved on to the beds themselves.  First came springs, topped with cotton batting, etc.  Then came the choice of soft, medium, firm.  Twin, full, queen and king.  After that, adjustable, the head went up and down, the foot as well.  (I think we first saw them in hospitals.)  And finally, now the full size is on the way out, I think, while memory foam, and remote control pressure filled mattresses are in.

All of this is well and good...I wonder what our ancestors would think of all these marvels?  However, all this does not explain why I end up at the foot of the bed every morning, except for the fact, we are not meant to sleep at an angle.  As for my indigestion, acid re-flux, I don't have it very much any more.  Possibly because I stopped eating meals at 9:30/10:00 at night, or maybe, just maybe it might be because, my body is trying to sleep like cave man, with no pillow at all.