On Snoring and Earplugs

I'm amazed that I was able to make it through yesterday with no sleep. Of course I got home from work (at 8:30 PM) and went to sleep very quickly after watching Holland's Next Top Model. I blamed that mother-child combo the whole day for my having not slept. What a gross feeling it is to not sleep.

There was a time in my life when I carried ear plugs with me wherever I went. They were handy on flights - like Sunday - an they were handy if I suddenly found myself needing to sleep in a noisy environment. I bought my first pair after going on a square dancing weekend with a friend who will remain nameless.

I used to go to a lot of square dancing weekends with one friend and then different friend asked me to go to a very exclusive weekend in New Hampshire. It was mostly students from MIT, but other people, like me, could go on invitation. The friend was older and very friendly, not a guy I hung around a lot, but someone I who was easy to talk to and knew a lot of people.

So the first night, we went to bed in our little room in this little bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere. We had a small room with twin beds. I woke up a few hours later to what sounded like choking with a little bit of snoring thrown in. It was unbelievable. I tried something that the other friend had told me worked. He said to clap once really loudly. It wakes them up and they stop, not really knowing what the sound was. Then they reposition and go back to sleep. Didn't work. I tried to just ignore it (really didn't work) and I eventually had to go over and wake him up and ask him to roll over. It didn't stop completely, but I was able to get back to sleep finally.

A few months later, I went to another square dancing weekend with still another friend. I wouldn't have believed it, but he snored even louder. He was a bigger guy and it seemed to echo through his body and through the quiet, dark room. Because I had my earplugs, I could just put them in and rolled over. I could still hear the snoring (I'm sure they heard it in the next room), but it was muffled and I could go back to sleep.

The original friend did something once that made me laugh out loud. He made a big deal of telling me that he slept with his arms wrapped around a long cylindrical pillow with one end of it under his chin so that he wouldn't snore. It was a big ceremony. I woke up later, of course, and looked over at him. His arms were wrapped around the pillow and the pillow was still under his chin, and he was snoring away.

Sometimes Fred snores (he swears he doesn't) and I just roll him over. Maybe it's a guy thing. Whatever it is, I've rarely been greeted with anything but, "Wha...wha? Sorry." I've heard I snore on occasion. I once had a boyfriend who said I'd snored for a few hours during the night. I said, "Why didn't you wake me up?" He said, "I was enjoying laying there listening to you." Sweet, but I can't imagine myself ever muttering those words.