Destination Sleep
Posted By Caulimovirus on March 2, 2008
“Why 8:00 a.m. Classes And Roommates Don’t Mix”
.: This three-part story begins Thursday evening in my room when I go to bed two hours earlier than usual. My friends and I are leaving for Austin at 11:00 pm on Friday, so I need to be well-rested. Normally my dreams are vivid and remarkable, but this one is different. Instead of talking fruits and cloud dragons, all I see is a pulsating wall accompanied by steady pounding. Soon the wall stops throbbing, and I realize now that I’m awake and walls don’t pulse in real life.
.: The pounding sound remains, however. I wait half a minute to see if it will go away, and when it doesn’t I perform early morning game theory calculations to determine if I should do something about it. The reasoning, as best as I can reconstruct it, resembles this:
If I get up and explore the source of the sound I may or may not find it, but moving my body out of bed will surely disturb my sleep for the rest of the night. If I stay in bed and do nothing the sound may stop on its own, but there’s no guarantee this will happen in a timely manner or that it won’t happen again in the future.
.: Since I have to pee, I crawl out of bed anyway. I look at the clock beside the bed and curse the sleep gods for waking me at 3:30 am. When I reach the stairs it becomes clear the source is within my apartment: the downstairs lights are on, the TV’s making noise, and the beats get louder with every step I take.
.: I recognize the tune at this point: my roommate and three of his friends are playing “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. One person has an acoustic guitar, one is singing, and the other’s just watching. My roommate somehow convinced himself that playing the drums was the best possible thing to do at 3:30 in the morning, and now he’s not even trying to play softly.
.: I stand there, staring, contemplating my next move. Should I punch him, then grab his drumsticks? Once I grab them, should I simply confiscate them or destroy them? There’s a garbage disposal five feet to my left, could I get there before he stops me?
.: While I’m glaring, the guitarist offers his two cents, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Cody’s not happy. Yep, that’s what it looks like; he’s not happy.” My roommate turns and finally notices me. He stops drumming, and without saying a word I snatch the drumsticks and toss them into the next room. I know it’s a symbolic gesture and not a real solution (there are several pairs of drumsticks all over the room), but I don’t like using words at 3:30 in the morning.
.: I stalk back up the stairs, still angry and annoyed. I think about how big an asshole you have to be to play drums that early when you know your roommate has an 8:00 class, and it enrages me further. I think about how difficult it is to sleep when you’re angry and how irritating self-perpetuating loops can be. I try to sleep but give up after ten minutes. With nothing to do, I update my blog and think about the drive to Austin I have to make in 19 hours.
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