El Burro Volador

In the early days of our relationship, Rebekah was recovering from some very tumultuous times in her life.  She was truly a fragile flower in those days, and this was seldom more apparent than when I had to awaken her from her nightly Ambien coma.  Each morning was a miniature Lazarus spectacular, complete with weeping, praying, paramedics yelling “clear”, the chanting of clergy and the crackle of the defibrillator  (I provided most of the weeping – ‘Bekah could be really cranky when she woke up).

The intervening years have been good to ‘Bekah.  Whatever my shortcomings as a spouse (dwindling career prospects, bizarre sexual hangups, snoring, possible incipient madness, fiscal irresponsibility, chronic infidelity, the cockfighting ring I run out of her school after hours, my snarky blog, etc.), I am a fairly good nursemaid.  Several years of regular meals, plenty of sleep, scrupulous adherence to medical appointments and medication schedules, and a low, low incidence of drama have done good things for Rebekah’s health.

Nowadays waking her is a much easier proposition.  After feeding her I simply head for the bathroom and turn on the shower.  Usually, the pressure of the cultural taboo against wasting water is sufficient to pull Rebekah out of bed and into her day.  Some days, however, I have to use my Duck Spatula (“Duck” is my pet name for Rebekah).  I designed the Duck Spatula, and built it myself out of a baking sheet (any thin sheet of metal will do) riveted to the metal pole from an old pool-cleaning net.  Its use is likewise simple: merely insinuate the edge of the spatula-head under Rebekah and, using the pole as a lever, flip her out of bed and run like hell.