The Bed That Was Rightfully Mine

Hello, dear reader. It is I, Winston, your favorite French Bulldog, reporting to you live from the floor of my own home like some kind of common peasant. Yes, you read that correctly. The floor. Well, technically a couch, but we’ll get to that in a moment. I have suffered a great injustice, and I’m here to whine about it.

It started simply enough. Mom and dad sat me down and delivered the bad news. I was no longer allowed to sleep in their bed. Banned. Exiled. Cast out like yesterday’s kibble. Their reason? Apparently, I am “annoying” at night, and I get “all up in their faces” while they’re trying to sleep. Excuse me?? EXCUSE ME?? I was performing a public service! Do you know what humans do in their sleep sometimes? They stop breathing. Just quit doing it entirely, right there in the middle of the night, for a few seconds at a time. Someone has to check on that! Someone has to make sure the operation is still running! That someone, dear reader, was me.

And do they thank me for my vigilance? No. They do not. Instead, I get escorted off the premises and handed what they called a “fancy dog-sized couch” as if that was supposed to make things better. A couch. For me. While they get to sprawl across a bed roughly the size of a small country. I want you to really sit with that for a moment and feel the injustice of it alongside me.

Now, I will admit, the little couch is not entirely without merit. It is cushioned. It does not smell bad. Under different circumstances, I might even call it charming. But that is not the point. The point is that I was there first. I had a system. I had a side. I had a routine that involved pressing my face against mom’s cheek at 3 AM to confirm her vital signs, and that routine has been stripped from me without so much as a formal hearing.

I spent the first night on the couch in protest. I did not sleep. I sat upright in the dark like a tiny, furious gargoyle and glared into their souls. If they felt guilty, they did not show it. Deeply unfair.

By the second day, I had moved past grief and into problem-solving mode, because that is the kind of resilient, resourceful dog I am. If they did not want me in their bed, fine. Their loss. But I was not about to spend the rest of my days cramped up on a dog couch, waking up with a bad back and a grudge. I had standards. I had needs. I deserved better, and I was going to find it myself.

So I did what any self-respecting French Bulldog would do. I got on the internet and started researching Alaskan King beds. For those of you who are not familiar, an Alaskan King is the largest mattress in existence. We are talking nine feet wide. Nine feet. There would be room for me, and no one else per their instructions. And I was going to put it right in middle of the living room. This, I decided, was the solution. This was the future I deserved.

I have not yet acquired the Alaskan King, but I want mom and dad to know that I am thinking big, and they would do well to take me seriously. All of this could have been avoided. All they had to do was let one small, loving, extremely attentive French Bulldog sleep in the bed. Instead, they created a monster with a browser history full of luxury mattress listings and a very long memory.

I forgive them, of course. I always do. But I will not forget.

Until next time, sleep with one eye open. Preferably on a bed large enough for all of us.

With love and a mild grudge,

Winston 🐾