Shut Eye

It’s so hard to fall asleep. I always feel so rushed about the entire process. There are far too many obstacles that lie between me and sweet slumber. The minute my husband rolls over and says good night, the clock starts to rapidly count down. I must fall asleep before that man. If I don’t, he’ll keep me up for the next two hours. It wouldn’t be so difficult if he kept to his side of the bed, but he only snores when his body is carefully wrapped around mine, like a 6’5” boa constrictor. He will begin to snore only when his mouth is perfectly situated by my ear.I believe most women solve this predicament with a sharp elbow jab to the perpetrator’s abdomen, or a polite plea to their spouse to “please turn over.”

           

When I was younger, my grandmother, Granny, lived in a mobile home park in the East Mountains outside of Albuquerque, about two miles away from our house. On rare occasions a good behavior, my twin sister Shannon and I were allowed to spend the weekend at Granny’s. We would spend the day making all kinds of delectable baked goods and watching Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. At night, we would brush our teeth and climb into Granny’s king sized bed and lie on either side of her. Between the pea green sheets and down comforter, the three of us would sigh in sleepiness. Granny would turn over and say to us, “Good night girls. Now, I’m sorry if I snore, it happens when you get older,” she’d chuckle, “so if I snore just wake me up and I’ll stop.”

           

I suppose I was under the impression that Granny’s snoring policy applied to all snorers. Unfortunately, not all snorers supply their neighbors with the same amount of courtesy. When I shared a room with Shannon, I once woke her up and told her to stop snoring. In a loving, sisterly way, she indicated to me that she did not care, made a face, and resumed her nasal cacophony. I have learned this waking strategy has proved just as effective with Tanner. I woke him him up oce to inform him he was keeping me from sleeping. He murmured an apology and continued to saw.

           

When I was in fifth grade, my friend Andrea Parga invited me to spend the night over at her house. Andrea’s father, Mario Sr., was our church’s music pastor. Everyone in the Parga family was loud and boisterous. It was great. The Parga’s simply didn’t state an opinion; they announced it, with shouts and music and gestures. No one did it more then Mario. When he spoke, the walls shook with the vibrations of his voice. His laugh bellowed into every corner of the room. The night I came over, I was convinced I would witness something that was only rumored to exist: silence in the Parga household.

           

Andrea and I finally put away our play make-up and her older sister’s CDs. We rolled out sleeping bags on the living room floor and quietly giggled to ourselves until we starting yawning. I lay still in quiet observation. Then, a horrible sound came from the back of the house. I was in unfamiliar territory, so I shook Andrea awake.

“Andrea,” I said nervously, “Is your mom vacuuming?”

“Huh? No,” she yawned and turned over, “that’s my dad.”

“Vacuuming?!”

“No ‘Manda! He’s just snoring.”

How could that sound come out of human being? I thought. It sounded like a train wreck, or waves crashing on a cliff, or a clogged pipe. I stared at the ceiling fan the entire night.

           

But perhaps, this phenomenon is reserved fathers. Perhaps, as a woman’s body changes during the nine months of gestation, a man’s does too, so that they both can feel as though their bodies have backfired on them by the time a child enters this world. My dad always snored. I never heard it from my bedroom, but when he’d get comfortable in an armchair on Sunday afternoons, he would quickly drift off. Actually, if he was still for five minutes he would beging to nod. When we were little, Troy, Shannon and I would gather around and watch his gaping mouth in wonder, as if we were on an African safari and had just spotted a pride of lions. A long, sawing sound would be cut off by a quick snort, and we would all jump back as though he might wake up and roar at us.

           

Once, I heard my mom discussing Dad’s snoring with one of her friends. “I know what you mean,” Mom said, “Danny’s got ‘Sleep Apnea.’” A smile crept in the corner of her mouth. The friend nodded knowingly.

“What’s ‘apnea’?” I said in a worried voice.

Mom launched into a gigantic scientific explanation, but the only words I heard were, “so basically, he stops breathing.”

“Stops breathing?!” I exclaimed.

Mom has this way of introducing incredibly terrifying information in a nonchalant manner. I ate an apple in front of her once, and she let me know that apple seeds contain strychnine, a poison.  So when she said, “Yeah, I guess you can die from it.” I tempted to believe that breathing wasn’t as vital to existence as I had originally thought.

 

Glorieta is a tiny mountain community near Santa Fe New Mexico. Glorieta is Mecca to Southern Baptists. Our church owned a cabin up there and hosted various member events over the years. My dad and brothers went to a men’s retreat over a long weekend. When he returned, Mom asked, “How did it go?”

“Oh it was fine,” Dad replies, “Except Steve Jordan kept me awake all night with his snoring.”

Meanwhile, back at the Jordan’s….

Mrs. Jordan: “Steve, how was the men’s retreat?”

Mr. Jordan: “Fine, but that Danny Turpin kept me awake all night with his snoring.”

This has always baffled me, but it’s a great story nonetheless.

 

Actually, I have alot of great snoring stories. The thing about snoring stories, is you just can’t blab them to everyone. By writing this, I’m breaking a cardinal rule of snoring storytellers, which is not to broadcast this imformation. Snorers become known via word of mouth. Someday my mom will sit down with some sweet girlfriend of Ty’s, show her embarassing baby pictures of him, and whisper, “You know, he snored as a baby.” (which is true, all you future girlfriends of his!) That’s how people should learn of other’s sawing habits. Nevertheless, my repetoire has caused me to ponder my own sleep routine. Am I among their ranks? Do I snore? Tanner can’t answer this because he falls into a dead sleep the moment his head hits the pillow. So I figure, by default, since I know so many snorers, I probably am one.