On Tiger Woods and Sleeping Alone

Sara called about an hour ago. It’s official, her husband is out of town and will not make his flight back home tonight.

“I can be there by ten,” she said, “and you won’t even know I’m there.”

So it is that I plant a key under the mat and hope she can find her way to the spare bedroom. By ten I will have long been in bed myself and honestly, if you think about it, this is no imposition. This is just a married girlfriend who is scared to death of sleeping alone in her condo, of spending one night on her own without her husband in residence. Honestly? I don’t mind, knowing that when it comes to me and my friends, my house is their house for whatever they need (short of a meth lab and thank God none of them are into that) even when I don’t see their panic, as in this case. Sara is desperately afraid of being alone, not sure how to handle any intruder who might come in (and having convinced herself this intruder will only come when her husband is gone). I have been there and done that myself, and even have an official ‘bedroom’ at Holly’s when she had the same concern. Still, I don’t get it. After fifteen years of marriage I wasn’t a huge fan of sleeping alone myself but somewhere along the line of doing it I finally got clear on the reality that: The odds of someone breaking in were pretty slim, and even if they did break in, whether I was home alone or not I’d still call 911 and hope for the best and as a back up plan, beat the crap out of them with one pair or another of stilletos. Relying, of course, on Basil to sound ferocious in the interim.

The truth is, almost six years later, I don’t mind sleeping alone, and I actually like it. I sleep, year round, with my windows wide open. Have yet to be accosted. Told this to Sara but she’s still coming over and as I said, that’s OK. Just glad it’s not me, having that difficulty.

Getting ready for bed, I thought about the day, and the news. Tiger Woods, in particular, and how his wife ‘used a golf club to free him from the car’ after his accident, in his own driveway, shortly before three a.m. This was too good. Owen of course espoused a theory. “They were having,” he said, “a little domestic argument, and I personally think she had the golf club in her hand to begin with.” All I could do was laugh at that. “I agree,” I said, “and it explains, doesn’t it? Why even after dating for so long I was never then and am not now quite clear now on where you keep your golf clubs.”

“Mad,” he said, “I think you’d find something, golf club or not.”

Touche.

A man who knows me.

But, still. It will be interesting to find out what the real story is, never mind Owen’s, “you may expect a Teflon coated explanation. Everything in his life needs to be perfect.”

It’s good to know, I’m thinking, that Tiger Woods has domestic disputes that end in vehicles being massacred with golf clubs, and it’s good to know that regardless of the occupancy of my spare bedroom tonight, I have found a way in the last six years to sleep well alone.

Basil remains on high alert, however, knowing that tonight, her person is OK but her Friend from Book Club could use a buddy. At least when she’s missing from my feet tonight I will know where to find her.