A friend of mine flies business class all the time for work, and so has fallen into the habit of handing out airline gifts when he meets people. It was my turn recently, and he greeted me at the pub with a set of Virgin Atlantic pyjamas.
Usually, I am a “sleep-in-my-boxer-shorts” type of guy, regardless of the time of year. I like to give my wife something to have nightmares about, plus, first thing in the morning I like to look in the mirror to keep track of how many letters of the words “Calvin Klein” are obscured by my stomach overhanging my boxers. I am currently on the n and the K, and hope to move to full words by the summer.
Sleeping in your boxers is a pleasant enough experience. It means getting ready for bed does not require looking for anything, and in the winter there is that sadomasochistic moment where you have to warm up the sheets when you get in. You also place yourself at high risk of cold hands and feet touching your bare skin: many of my mornings have been ruined by an icy foot to the stomach, as one of the kids jumps in.
As is the nature of comedians, I will often be in bed when parcels and post are delivered. This means a scramble to the door, a realisation that I am wearing only pants, a scramble to a wardrobe, before scrambling back to the door to leave the DHL driver wondering if that was my penis he could see below my dinner jacket.
For these reasons, I decided I would try the pyjamas out. When bedtime arrived, I went upstairs with my wife. I told her that I was going to be wearing pyjamas; she responded by saying it didn’t need an announcement.
The first issue was finding the bloody things. I spent five or six minutes trying to remember what I had done with them, turning our bedroom upside down, while my wife calmly retrieved hers from under her pillow – because unlike me, she gets up and has a structured morning routine. I always get up half an hour after I should, and leave a trail of destruction in my wake as I try to get to work on time. I will often return home after work to remember that I was running too late to put my breakfast stuff in the dishwasher, and so smashed it on the floor to save time.
I have to confess to finding the pyjamas unreasonably comfortable. There is something about putting on loose polyester garments that makes you feel ready for an enjoyable sleep. The visual, however, was slightly depressing. I’m not implying that me in my boxer shorts suggests there is still some magic in the bedroom, but both of us changing into our pyjamas felt a little bleak.
Still, having enjoyed the new nightwear so much, I decided I needed to experiment further. I worried I had been so narrow-minded about night-time options that I had allowed myself to be pigeonholed – so I purchased myself a onesie.
It arrived last week. It’s cosy, it’s comfortable, and I feel as if I’m really getting ready for bed when I put it on. In fact, it felt great until I had to get up for one of my now-compulsory seven pisses in the night. I get out of bed, and try to stay semi-asleep as I go. This was rendered impossible: the onesie seems to operate a level of security similar to the nuclear codes – I couldn’t get out of the bloody thing. I spent several minutes fumbling around, trying to free myself via the usual zips, before panicking that I would have to tell my family I had pissed my onesie, and tearing myself out of it.
My experiment is now over. I have decided to go back to my tried-and-tested boxer shorts. I can only apologise to any delivery drivers in the Crawley area.
