I’m thin, I'm happy, and I'm cohabitating with a guy who likes folding the laundry, sharing the cooking, emptying the dishwasher, walking my dog when it's cold out, and organizing the kitchen. Aka all of the stuff that I suck at/would rather jump off a cliff than do. He even thinks I look better without makeup than with it (okay, so his vision clearly sucks, but that's okay by me!), and for some completely and utterly inexplicable reason, he loves me for the total weirdo that I am.
There's just one teeny, tiny, itty bitty, little, inconsequential-to-anyone-else-but-potentially-insurmountable-to-me problem.
He snores.
Loudly.
Every night.
And I'm the world's lightest sleeper/an insomniac on a good night.
Houston, we have a problem.
Especially because no sleep for Sara is the approximate equivalent of no tv and no beer for Homer Simpson.
So, like with all of life’s great problems, I turned to my mother for help. My father is a chronic snorer, and I knew she’d have a solution for me.
Unfortunately, I forgot about Operation Mama Goodman Wants Grandchildren, so her answer was to suck it up and deal with it.
Thanks mom.
Next, I tried talking to the Boyfriend about finding a solution. He claims he does not snore. Despite the fact that he snores so loudly that he often wakes HIMSELF up with his snores, then looks at me and says, "Did you hear something?" At which point, he claims it was our upstairs neighbors, whom I firmly believe are either rolling a boulder Sisyphus-style across the floor every night or else are engaged in the BEST game of Raiders of the Lost Ark EVER. (If it's the latter, I so want to go play with them. If it's the former, they just need to cut that crap out.) But that's never what actually jolts him awake in the middle of the night. It's his snoring.
It was time to solve this problem on my own. I already have a white noise machine, but the Boyfriend is louder than that. Actually, he’s louder than the combination of my white noise machine, the white noise app on my phone (used for travel), an oscillating fan, and a rabid platypus giving birth to a full-sized rhinoceros. Which meant that my first solution (earplugs—but the super cute, Holly Golightly-styled tassel ones, dahling) was ineffective.
And, as my best friend constantly reminds me, I look terrible in orange. So plotting his death, while satisfying at 3am when he’s sprawled like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man across the entire bed, with Rosie sleeping on my side in the sliver of space left for me, and snoring louder than the Concord’s sonic booms, is out of the question.
Plus, I’d miss him (albeit not his snoring or bed hogging) if he was gone.
But this is really a safety issue. Not just because I’m even more sleep deprived than usual and am therefore far more statistically likely to fall asleep at the wheel, make soap, start an underground fight club, and/or shop for shoes I don’t need and can’t afford as a form of stress relief. But because when the zombies finally attack, we won’t survive the first night. They’d hear him snoring no matter how well we hid and then Rosie and I would be devoured as well. And that is simply unacceptable.
I read online that snoring is most common when someone sleeps on his back. So even though I’m the world’s least cuddly sleeper, I figured that telling him I wanted to cuddle could fix the problem.
It did not. It just meant that he was snoring directly into my ear.
And apparently he can’t breathe when I put my pillow over his face to muffle the sound. I kind of felt like that was his problem, not mine. But he disagreed, and I wasn’t trying to fight. These are the sacrifices you make for a successful relationship, people.
I contemplated the idea of trying to convince him that a gag would really be a sexy role-playing thing as opposed to a method of forcing nose-breathing, but I don’t want to open that door. No offense to anyone who’s into that stuff, but it’s just not my thing. AT ALL. Let’s blame Pulp Fiction for my aversion to anything along those lines. But when it’s being forced on Marcellus Wallace, I just don’t find it appealing. And neither does Marcellus Wallace.
So I tried gently waking him up when he starts to snore. At which point I was mauled by a wild bear. Or at least that’s what I thought was happening, because he does a pretty good impression of a mauling wild bear when woken unexpectedly mid-snore. Some Bactine and a Tetanus shot later, I won’t be trying that again.
It was so simple! I have a dog. And that dog has a bark control collar! No, not the shock kind. I couldn’t handle that (on Rosie. It might be funny on the Boyfriend. No, it wouldn’t. But it would be HILARIOUS on someone ELSE’s boyfriend. Note to self—suggest shock collar to someone else who has the same problem). She has the kind that sprays her in the face with water when she barks, which stops the barking, makes me laugh hysterically, and sends her to hide in terror under the bed.
Perfect.
Of course, there are two problems with this solution: I probably still won’t be able to get a good night’s sleep because of the insomnia issue and the Boyfriend definitely won’t be able to get a good night’s sleep due to the being sprayed in the face with water every time he snores issue.
But on the plus side, remember how good Brad Pitt’s abs looked in Fight Club? There are benefits to not being able to sleep I suppose. You're just not allowed to talk about them.
