A symphony of snores

Snoring is one of those things that it is both very easy and very hard for me to be mad at someone for doing. On the one hand, it's just... so... GRRRARGH! For the love of my pillow and my sanity, please stop making that noise!! And on the other hand... the person is asleep! It's not something they're doing on purpose, just to annoy me. They have no control over it... which makes it easier to be kind to the person, but doesn't make the snoring any less annoying. I say this knowing full well that I, too, snore. I mean, I think I do... sometimes, when I'm sick. I don't really know... I'm asleep at the time. I've been told on occasion that I have been caught making nocturnal noises resembling certain avian creatures. So, I'm guilty of it too.

And really, when you're told that you're snoring, what can you do? Roll over and try not to do it again, but... it's a sleep thing, right?! I am an incredibly lucky woman in that my husband rarely snores... or if he does, he does so while I'm already asleep. I think I can sleep through most snoring if I can just get to sleep first. Of course, sometimes my husband doesn't snore, but he starts... well... breathing. I mean, I know he's always breathing, but most of the time it's all quiet like and unobtrusive. Then suddenly, for no reason I can discern, he's... breathing. Every exhale and inhale is magnified and reverberates and I think I can actually hear each little bronchi doing whatever it is that they do inside the lungs. Anyway, it's not snoring, but it's just as obnoxious, only it sounds very strange to roll over in the middle of the night and tell your husband to stop breathing.

There is a wide world of snores out there too, and I've spent some time (sleepless nights in particular) coming up with names for many of them. My brother with a sinus infection sounds like a chainsaw--without exaggeration even. He really does have that strange mechanical revving a chainsaw sound that sends my lizard brain into fits of terror remembering torment received at various haunted houses across the country. My grandpa has a much deeper snore. Like I imagine a grizzly bear would sound if you attached a duck call to his left nostril mid-winter hibernation. My husband sounds like some water fowl inside a bagpipe. Some people have delicate, dainty snores like the cooing of morning doves. I would hope that I have such a lilting musical snore. More likely I sound like a vacuum cleaner trying to hoover up Irish stew.

One particular night from recent memory yielded a very surreal moment. Four women sharing a hotel, all sleeping peacefully when suddenly, around about four in the morning, I'm awake. Whether because of a need to pee or some strange noise that penetrated my dreams or just that my stupid internal clock thinks that "four" is a magical number and thus an appropriate time for waking. Whatever. I was awake. As I lay trying not to twitch, roll around and otherwise be a nuisance, I noticed a strange sound. I couldn't place it. Maybe I wasn't as awake as I thought. Maybe I was still half asleep and some creature or critter from my dreams was projecting it's lonesome mating call into the hotel room. Not likely, but it was an option I seriously considered while trying to identify the noise. Then I realized... it sounded just like the Wonka Wash... Ok, not just like, but very close. Turns out that I was in just the right place at just the right time to catch the perfect symphony of snores. I had a hard time keeping the giggles to myself.

And that's all I have to say about that.