Sleep Deprivation: Part II
Posted By Caulimovirus on November 25, 2005
“For Some Reason My Grandparents Don’t Hear It”
.: As has been well documented, a decent night of sleep and my existence are two concepts which seem to be incompatible these days. First, it starts with the incessant ringing next door, and then it moves onto waking up in the middle of the night with sore ears because of not-so-low pressure earplugs. Most recently, it’s clocks.
.: You see, it’s Thanksgiving, and all the Cobb kids (there are four) are visiting the Grandparents. The problem arises when the beds (there are two) are appropiated to each grandchild. Being the youngest, I am forced onto the living room couch. This means I can’t go to sleep until everyone else has — the living room being the room where most of the family lives during the day.
.: But there are other reasons why I can’t go to sleep as well, the main one being clocks. Specifically, ticking clocks. In my grandparent’s home, I’ve counted one digital clock, and it’s on the oven. In the living room alone there are five wind-up analog clocks. The neurotic whiner in me finds it incredibly difficult to fall asleep with one ticking sound, but five is simply outrageous!
.: But there’s more: older people don’t sleep as long as youth, so after my grandparents go to sleep at midnight, they wake up at sunrise. Where’s the first place they go to after they wake up? The living room — to live! They’re accommodating, though, and offer me their bed for the rest of the morning when who should arrive but my big older brother. He crawls into the other 3/4ths of the bed and proceeds to breathe irregularly and be hot. Enough is enough, so I get up and walk across the house to his bed. No sooner than I lay down do I hear — what’s this? — another ticking clock! In his room! On his wall! With no way to stop it from ticking!
.: I give up, get up, and get breakfast. I see my grandmother wind one of the clocks I stopped last night and begin to wonder, “When will my night come?”
I’m the same way.
The sound of clocks (whether they be wind-up, battery-operated, or *certain* electric ones) always keep me awake.
I can sleep (and be coaxed into sleep) through crickets, bird chirps, dog barks, and various intrusive traffic sounds (think: Manhattan) but get me around a clock when I am inclined to slumber, and I stay awake, awaiting the next “click!” or “clock! or “tick!” or “tock!” (no matter how muted the second announcing sound may be.)
And here I thought I was the only one (my family pokes fun at me for this quirk – “But you sleep through everything! Why do we have to take the batteries out of the clock in the guest room?”)
I start counting the ticks. I can’t help it, it’s the band nerd in me. I’ll make up songs to the rhythm. Every clock has a slightly different clicky sound, and it can make for a good hour or two of no sleep.
But what abour birds? Do they keep you awake?
3projection