Sleep - Interrupted
Rod and I took a hiatus from our New Zealand Adventures to visit our families back home in Pennsylvania. We had a terrific holiday and spent the last day in Washington DC with Rod’s parents, Bud and Eileen. We toured the sites and ended our day in the Quality Inn near the Dulles airport.
We booked the hotel earlier in the week. We had intended on getting two rooms – one for us and one for Rod’s folks, but the cheapest place we could find near the airport was $160. I suggested that was a bit much to pay for two rooms, so why didn’t we just share one?
Eileen warned us she had a tendency to get up a few times a night and wouldn’t want to bother us, but we quickly dismissed this as something that wouldn’t be a problem. There was no mention of any nighttime idiosyncrosies Bud may have that might impinge on our slumber, so we assumed all would be fine. We booked the one room.
As we settled in for the evening, there was a brief conversation about Bud’s sleep apnea machine. We quickly became thankful when we learned he had left it at home. It makes a horrible racket and I’m particularly sensitive to any noises that may keep me from sleeping.
It was already 10:45 and we had to get up at 4:30, so being able to sleep soundly was important at that point… even more so as we had around 35 hours of travel ahead of us.
Bud went to bed before Rod and I, as we watched a bit more television. When Bud turned out the light on his side, I jokingly quipped, "No snoring!" He said, "There are no guarantees, I didn’t bring my machine. But, if you think I’m bad, wait till you hear Eileen."
Hmmmmmmmmmmm……..it was at this point I was now wondering if this room sharing idea was such a good one….. No machine equals snoring??? I hadn’t realised this minor (yet important) detail.
All was fine while the lights and TV were on. Finally around 11:00, Rod put his book down and turned the lights out. Within about two minutes the chorus began. Since it takes the average human seven minutes to get to sleep, this was a problem….
It started with a lot of deep, soft sighing. Rod and I were prepared, however, with ear plugs by each bedside. As Rod whispered, "Just great!" we donned the plugs. The deep sighing quickly escalated, however, into nose-rumbling, snorting inhalations followed by loud, wet exhalations.
As I lie there, Rod was completely still. I started to get angry (and quite jealous) that he was sleeping already and I was left alone to hear the din, when, all of a sudden Rod hits me on the leg. I take out my left plug . . . . "Are you hearing this?," he says. "Am I hearing this? The snorts are penetrating the hi-tech, spaceage foam of my earplugs!"
After much whispered discussion, we assume the best case scenario - he’ll most likely get into a rhythm and it won’t be so bad. We put the plugs back in…..
Rhythm did not ensue. In fact, soon, the sighing, followed by the rumbling snort and wet exhalation is punctuated by doubly loud, quickly accented grunts reminiscent of funny characters in children’s cartoons. It was during the first of these grunts that the giggling began. Rod said the following morning he could feel my body racking the bed.
Another hit on the leg . . . . earplugs removed . . . . "What are we going to do?," Rod whispers as he works to keep a loud giggling fit at bay. "We only have five hours till we have to get up. Can you sleep?" This was a rhetorical question.
"Is it worth $160 for another room?," Rod pondered aloud.
Now, this was a tempting thought, but there was no way we could move two 65 pound suitcases, 50 pounds of golf clubs and sundry items out of the room without waking up the offender and his so-far-silent accomplice. After much whispered discussion, we reinserted the earplugs.
I tried several times during the next 30 minutes to reposition the earplugs in my auditory canal. The snoring was so loud, I kept thinking, "surely these things aren’t inserted properly!" I have a pair of those disposable, foam earplugs - you know the kind that you have to squish up really small, put in your ears and hold in place till they inflate.
The challenge with these types of earplugs is timing the split second just perfectly from the time you’ve squished the plug to its thinnest form to the point of insertion in the ear. If you don’t get this timing just right and miss the centre target of your canal opening, you are back to square one and squishing the thing once again.
My focus during this episode was on trying to get the thinnest possible point on the end of my earplug so that I could insert the plug (with lightning speed, of course) as deeply as possible into my ear canal, so that upon inflation it blocked out the greatest percentage of noise. However, each time I inserted, I could STILL hear the snoring! And, each time I took out the plugs and tried again – getting the foam so thin that the risk of an eardrum puncture was quite high. At that point, I thought the risk of partial deafness was a small price to pay for a few hours of sound sleep.
Little did I know until a discussion the following day that Rod was beside me the whole time repositioning his earplugs (and risking hearing impairment) to no avail as well.
After at least seven attempts at getting the best plug insertion as possible, I admitted defeat. The snoring decibels rose and continued to seep through my perfectly positioned plugs while the punctuating grunts elicited many more giggles.
Luckily sleepiness overrode the noisy distraction and I was able to nod off around midnight. Rod did too. One saving grace was Bud’s snoring was a solo performance and Eileen only got up once in the night, which ironically didn’t bother us at all.
The conclusion? There does come a point in life when you’ve become ‘too old’ to share a hotel room with your parents. If you are wondering when that is, Rod and I can confidently tell you it’s in your 39th year.
Heather
We booked the hotel earlier in the week. We had intended on getting two rooms – one for us and one for Rod’s folks, but the cheapest place we could find near the airport was $160. I suggested that was a bit much to pay for two rooms, so why didn’t we just share one?
Eileen warned us she had a tendency to get up a few times a night and wouldn’t want to bother us, but we quickly dismissed this as something that wouldn’t be a problem. There was no mention of any nighttime idiosyncrosies Bud may have that might impinge on our slumber, so we assumed all would be fine. We booked the one room.
As we settled in for the evening, there was a brief conversation about Bud’s sleep apnea machine. We quickly became thankful when we learned he had left it at home. It makes a horrible racket and I’m particularly sensitive to any noises that may keep me from sleeping.
It was already 10:45 and we had to get up at 4:30, so being able to sleep soundly was important at that point… even more so as we had around 35 hours of travel ahead of us.
Bud went to bed before Rod and I, as we watched a bit more television. When Bud turned out the light on his side, I jokingly quipped, "No snoring!" He said, "There are no guarantees, I didn’t bring my machine. But, if you think I’m bad, wait till you hear Eileen."
Hmmmmmmmmmmm……..it was at this point I was now wondering if this room sharing idea was such a good one….. No machine equals snoring??? I hadn’t realised this minor (yet important) detail.
All was fine while the lights and TV were on. Finally around 11:00, Rod put his book down and turned the lights out. Within about two minutes the chorus began. Since it takes the average human seven minutes to get to sleep, this was a problem….
It started with a lot of deep, soft sighing. Rod and I were prepared, however, with ear plugs by each bedside. As Rod whispered, "Just great!" we donned the plugs. The deep sighing quickly escalated, however, into nose-rumbling, snorting inhalations followed by loud, wet exhalations.
As I lie there, Rod was completely still. I started to get angry (and quite jealous) that he was sleeping already and I was left alone to hear the din, when, all of a sudden Rod hits me on the leg. I take out my left plug . . . . "Are you hearing this?," he says. "Am I hearing this? The snorts are penetrating the hi-tech, spaceage foam of my earplugs!"
After much whispered discussion, we assume the best case scenario - he’ll most likely get into a rhythm and it won’t be so bad. We put the plugs back in…..
Rhythm did not ensue. In fact, soon, the sighing, followed by the rumbling snort and wet exhalation is punctuated by doubly loud, quickly accented grunts reminiscent of funny characters in children’s cartoons. It was during the first of these grunts that the giggling began. Rod said the following morning he could feel my body racking the bed.
Another hit on the leg . . . . earplugs removed . . . . "What are we going to do?," Rod whispers as he works to keep a loud giggling fit at bay. "We only have five hours till we have to get up. Can you sleep?" This was a rhetorical question.
"Is it worth $160 for another room?," Rod pondered aloud.
Now, this was a tempting thought, but there was no way we could move two 65 pound suitcases, 50 pounds of golf clubs and sundry items out of the room without waking up the offender and his so-far-silent accomplice. After much whispered discussion, we reinserted the earplugs.
I tried several times during the next 30 minutes to reposition the earplugs in my auditory canal. The snoring was so loud, I kept thinking, "surely these things aren’t inserted properly!" I have a pair of those disposable, foam earplugs - you know the kind that you have to squish up really small, put in your ears and hold in place till they inflate.
The challenge with these types of earplugs is timing the split second just perfectly from the time you’ve squished the plug to its thinnest form to the point of insertion in the ear. If you don’t get this timing just right and miss the centre target of your canal opening, you are back to square one and squishing the thing once again.
My focus during this episode was on trying to get the thinnest possible point on the end of my earplug so that I could insert the plug (with lightning speed, of course) as deeply as possible into my ear canal, so that upon inflation it blocked out the greatest percentage of noise. However, each time I inserted, I could STILL hear the snoring! And, each time I took out the plugs and tried again – getting the foam so thin that the risk of an eardrum puncture was quite high. At that point, I thought the risk of partial deafness was a small price to pay for a few hours of sound sleep.
Little did I know until a discussion the following day that Rod was beside me the whole time repositioning his earplugs (and risking hearing impairment) to no avail as well.
After at least seven attempts at getting the best plug insertion as possible, I admitted defeat. The snoring decibels rose and continued to seep through my perfectly positioned plugs while the punctuating grunts elicited many more giggles.
Luckily sleepiness overrode the noisy distraction and I was able to nod off around midnight. Rod did too. One saving grace was Bud’s snoring was a solo performance and Eileen only got up once in the night, which ironically didn’t bother us at all.
The conclusion? There does come a point in life when you’ve become ‘too old’ to share a hotel room with your parents. If you are wondering when that is, Rod and I can confidently tell you it’s in your 39th year.
Heather
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