The Housekeeper’s Confusion
There was an unexpected social side effect to my new lifestyle. We have a cleaning lady, Mrs. Higgins, who comes every other Thursday. The first time she saw my pile of blankets on the floor and the pristine, untouched bed, she was visibly distressed. She pulled my wife aside and whispered, loudly enough for me to hear, ” Is everything okay? Did he… did he do something wrong?” She thought I was in the doghouse, banished to the floor for some terrible marital crime.
My wife laughed until she cried. “No, he’s doing an experiment,” she explained. “He thinks he’s a samurai.” It became a running joke. But it highlighted how deeply ingrained the idea of the “bed” is in our culture. To sleep on the floor is seen as a punishment or a sign of poverty. Choosing it voluntarily seemed insane to everyone looking in from the outside. I had to learn to stop caring about what people thought and focus entirely on how I felt.