So Snorry

My mother gave me many things including small nasal passages. Many people compliment me on the "perfect" size of my lil' nose. Not too long, or wide, openings just right, straight. But the first time you spend the night with me, you will look at that beautiful nose just a little different.

The history of my snoring life begins early in my memory. I remember taking family vacations where my parents would put everyone to bed at 10 p.m. in a small, two-bedroom motel off the side of some forgotten Midwestern city. Since I am a nightowl, I have a hard time going to sleep at 10 pm, especially in foreign places where there is so much to see and learn.

Going to sleep usually included some family diagreement, where the only way my parents could get us to go to bed was to piss us off enough that we were angered into silence. And after everyone had gotten over that and fell asleep, I was often left fuming well into the rest of the night. This always even more agitated when they started.

First, it was one. My mother. Slow to begin. Infrequent. She is just losing conscienceness. At first, it even sounds sweet, like a low harp playing sharp riffs through it's strings.

Then the harmony began by my sister, sleeping next to me. One thing to watch with her was her deadly ability to break an eardrum while gassing the entire room. Flatulence was a specialty for my sister, and it was always a weapon she wasn't afraid to use. Like her snoring, it happened abruptly, sneaking up on you and scaring you with powerful force. These patterns were conducted open mouth, while she managed to spread across the bed like a cold amoeba, slowly and swiftly collecting the covers, until I was left completely miserable.

The harmony is accompanied by the bass. Enter the boom. Dad sleeps on his back with his hands on his belly. It's like he is poised for the song of the night, ready to add the steady drum of rips and snores. His remains constant, snoring in, and snoring out, a deadly octave lower.

By this time, my mother had fallen completely at the mercy of the snore. It's a slightly higher pitched tone, laced with a bit of saliva that seems to get stuck right in the back of her throat. I've tried imitating this and almost lost one of my tonsils. Unlike both my mother and my sister, my tonsils are still intact.

But my head is not. At this point, I become flamingly mad, getting out of the bed and pacing back and forth, not believing once again my relation to these people. I try to ignore the symphony of snores by sitting in a window sill, behind the curtains, with my hands over my head, looking out on the city. If we were lucky, we were high enough in the building to see the city below, bustling. I would open the window if I could to hear the people on the streets talking, hear the wind or rain, hear the sound of life outside of this room. It worked for a few minutes. But the second movement inside the room was gearing up.

It was the Midnight Switch. Now each person was comfortably prancing in Sleepyland, and had moved into their midnight position. Bodies are turned from stomachs to sides, arms are relocated, pillows adjusted, legs curled, feet covered. Ahhhhhh.........rrrrrrgggggg!

Now each person is adjusted so that while in the beginning, two were snoring about the same, they have managed to cover any individual piece of silence left over by weaving their instruments.

This is an instance of where I really learned my own strength of will. As I worked myself up enough even to cry because my sleep was being robbed, I put myself to bed and dedicated my mind to taking me somewhere else. This is an extremely exhausting process, that ultimately puts you straight to sleep, but the next day, I would still be mad that I was mad, mad that I was tired, and mad that they could not control their damn snoring!

Today, I have realized that my mother truly did give me, personally, my own ability to join the family snoring circus, perhaps even as their star. This is completely humiliating.

I wonder how many sleeplessness night(s) I have imposed on people from across the world?

Hostels across Europe: 50 times x 10 people ave. per hostel room= 500

Camping in close, drunken corridors: 20 times x 4 people ave. per tent= 80

Plus the people walking by: 20 times x 5 person ave. = 100

Plus the people who walk by and stay= 20

College sleep-overs: ???

frat parties: two parties x ??? people= ??? x 2

train/bus/taxi ride naps: 20 x 3 person ave. = 60

Ohmagod! If I sounded like the rest of my family, I have nearly offended half of the people I have ever met, mostly those I don't even know! (Ironically) How horrible it must have been to be somewhere with someone who SNORES!!! I know I NEVER look at that person ever again the same way, and would possibly reconsider my friendship (or lack of) for any future relations.

I can recall many sleep-over friends commenting about my talent, but only one who could actually out-snore me. I'd recall the vacation memories and remedies during those loud, disturbing nights, but to no avail. When I told my sleeping buddy this, he ramified the situation by turning the TV on at night, to drown out the noise. If that did anything, it only aided his pug to actually snore louder than he did.

So I can definitely relate to current frustrations with sleeping buddies who have a somewhat nocturnal nature to begin with. How awful it is to be in someone else's home, while they are snoring up the dead and disturbing your well deserved and needed sleep. I understand how compelling it can be to take their pillow and gently lay it over their face, plug their nose, or hit them every time they begin that steep incline again, if only for a few seconds of peace. I know that moving to the couch rarely solves the problem, while the house shakes around you, and you become increasingly cold and uncomfortable, and for me, pissed.

But hear me now: I profess today that I have been hereditarily empowered with the gift of snore. It is yet another piece of me. I have not been successful in hiding this trait, because I cannot control its intensity. I do know it worsens when I am stressed, drunk, or have smoked in previous hours. If I am very tired, I will snore. Head Cold? Intense snoring ahead. Cramped, stuffy rooms? Snore, snore away.

And in this proclamation, I announce a world-wide apology to any person whom I have disturbed by snoring next to them, in the same room, campground, house, apartment, boat, train, car, airplane, beach, bar, and hotel. I admit I have a problem with snoring, but since it doesn't bother me, I cannot be held responsible. I will do my best to inform the naive, isolate and protect them as needed from this impostering characteristic. I shall wear reminders to bed, and make every attempt to fall asleep after any other sleeping buddy in the room, campground, house, apartment, boat, train, car, airplane, beach, bar and hotel. I will refrain from eating too much before bed, drinking too heavily before passing out, and smoking on the days I may be sleeping with company. I will be sure to keep a buzzer operated by frequency linked to my ear, so each time I break a sound barrier, I will be shocked back to a stage of conscienceness where I can control my breathing.

Friends, be assured I will dedicate my free hours to research the history and progressions of snoring. I will volunteer for medical treatments, studies, and proposed remedies. I will be an advocate for the search to discover a treatment for those suffering from obsessive snoring disorder. I will wear masks, sniff herbs, and rub various concoctions on my face and neck in efforts of eliminating the noise.

And to all these people, in the past or in the future, please be certain, that your night(s) of sleepless snore listening, has been credited by the snore karma, and is being felt on me through a troubling bout of insomnia.

For all this, and for all there is to come, I am snore snorry.