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Show Short Cummings By KEVIN CUMMINGS Bed hogs deserve strict punishment for crime ever waking up. I keep up my end of the bargain by sleeping in the middle and stealing the covers all night long. It's a big responsibility, but I'm getting pretty good at it. In my defense, I have to say that I don't snore. (My wife says I do, but ignore her. For some reason she's been kind of tired and cranky late- In the dream I had, I saw my wife being carried out of the courtroom on the shoulders of thousands of happy wives. The newspaper headline read Jury Calls Killing 'Justifiable Homicide. 'I was so scared I woke up in a cold sweat. Then I pulled the covers up over my wife. Oh sure, it was only a dream, but why take chances? her side. Some people just don't want to believe in m?' We eventually 1 used to the new bed. Now my wife can prod me back to my side of the bed and take back her share of the covers without I had a nightmare the other night. I was in a courtroom, but nobody noticed me. My wife was sitting next to the public defender. The judge was just asking the jury to deliver a verdict. "Your honor," the jury foreman said, "we find the defendant innocent inno-cent of the murder of her husband by reason of the fact that he was a bed hog." It was just a bad dream, but it scared me. I don't know that anyone's ever been acquitted of murder because their mate was a bed hog, but it wouldn't surprise me. When my wife and I were first married, we had an iron-framed, sway-backed, double bed that my parents had given me when I went away to college. It didn't have box springs and the mattress sagged in the middle. All night long we rolled toward the center like twin avalanches tumbling down a mountain. By mutual agreement, we moved to the edges of the bed. As each of us rolled roll-ed to the outside, we puLled the covers with us. It wasn't uncommon un-common for the sheet to be suspended eight inches above the bed and to be taut enough to serve as a trampoline. In a matter of days, the sheets were showing signs of stress in the middle. We were in serious danger of being shot through opposite walls of our bedroom if the fabric ever gave way. My wife said we had to get a new bed or on" of us would have to sleep on the floor. I said if she wanted to sleep 011 the floor, that was fine by me. She said if anyone slept on the floor, it would be me. I said we had to get a new bed. Although the new bed was wide enough and didn't sag in the middle, it wasn't without its problems. prob-lems. My wife decided she wanted to discuss these problems at 3 a.m. the first night we had the bed. "You're on my side of the bed!" she shouted. "I am not!" I retorted. "I'm in the middle!" That was telling her. She kicked at me until I moved back to "my side." I had just dozed off when she thought of another problem that she wanted to discuss. "You have all the covers! ' ' she shouted. I raised my head and looked around. She was right. Magically, all the covers had migrated to my side of the bed. "They must have come here on their own," I said. "It's not my fault." She made a sort of "Hmmph!" noise and pulled the covers back to |