Why you gotta be all up in my snorin' face?!

I’ve always snored, as far back as anyone in my family can remember. I guess it’s pretty annoying to just about everyone who’s been near me while I’m asleep, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

My sister got the short end of the snore stick when we went on vacation. When we were little, our parents bought a small, 4-person pop-top camper. Every year, we’d hitch the thing up to our Suburban and head off into the rest of the world for an adventure of some sort. Man, we had some good adventures. I’m looking forward to writing about some of them later.

The thing about being on vacation when I was a little boy was that every day was exciting. Meeting new people, seeing new landscapes was always a thrill and I would be exhausted at the end of every day. Now, having a 4-person camper limited our options as to who slept with whom. My sister and I had sleeping bags on one side of the camper and Mom and Dad were on the other side (my Dad has always snored, too, so it’s not like you could get very far away from the noise anyway).

I don’t think I had a restful night’s sleep during those early vacations. Every time I would fall into a deep sleep, and start breathing heavy (forgive me for breathing, Sis! Jeez…) I’d get a kick or a punch or a shove from my big sis. I’d usually mutter something and roll over, and the whole cycle would start again.

But the WORST was how she would wake me up in the morning. Determined to exact some amount of revenge against me for her less-than-restful night, she would wake first and do the following:

1. Close my mouth, forcing me to breathe through my nose.
2. Hold my nose closed with her other hand, watching with glee as I struggled for a breath.
3. Laugh when my eyes would fly open with terror

This never ceased to amuse her. If given the chance today, she would probably sneak into my room before I woke up to do this to me.

For a while, the torture stopped. My college roommates didn’t seem to mind too much, and my from my Junior year on I slept alone. Except when I didn’t. But most of the time, I did.

Then I got married. I don’t know if my sister has, at some point, coached my wife in the fine art of torturing a snorer, or if she’s just a natural. Regardless, she has developed some interesting middle-of-the-night snoring confrontation skills.

For a while, she was a shover. She would just shove me, I would grunt and roll over. But that was never a long-term solution, merely achieving peace for a few minutes.

Then, for a while, she tried clicking her tongue. Someone told us that this was an excellent way to stop someone from snoring. The problem is that I’m a pretty deep sleeper, and noises generally don’t wake me. She said that it helped on occasion, but not for very long.

So now she has settled into the tried but true for generations technique of talking to the snoring husband and urging him to stop snoring. An exchange that happened the other night went like this (Keep in mind that neither of us were really awake):

Wife: J? You’re Snoring.

J: Mmmpth.

W: Roll over.

J: Mmmph…Why?

W: (long pause) Because that’s what boys do.

J: (another long pause as this registers as one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard, but I’m too tired to comment out loud) mmmm….OK.

At which point I rolled over. Because, after all, that’s what boys do.

Until next time, sleep soundly, and be kind to the snorers in your house. They’re honestly not doing it to kill your will to live with them.

J