Friday, March 27, 2009

Moses supposes his toes are roses...

I come for a line of snorers. We like to be heard even in our quite time. Just a little reminder to all predators that we don’t back down, we sounds vicious even in our sleep. Yes, it also means we can never go in hiding, but we aren’t ninnies!! We roar like lions even when in full relaxed repose. It was part of the noise of the house as you fell asleep growing up. You came to depend on it, as long as it was at least 2 rooms away. We all have limitations. You didn’t realize the intensity Dad had until it was in a room with you. The man is the Niagara Falls of snoring!

At about 16 my family went on vacation, we had the biggest hotel room I have ever seen. It was ginormous! How my Dad managed to find rooms that could sleep 7 people makes him a hero! The sleeping arrangements were creative. Mom and Dad had a bed, I was sleeping with Sister in the other bed. One set of brothers on the pull out sofa and the youngest brother on a sleeping mat on the floor. When you travel with Dad the goal is to fall asleep before him, or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, I was wound up. I was on vacation!! Sister and I had the giggles. Midnight had rolled around and everyone was asleep except Sister and I, who were now stuck in the vortex of sound that is Dad’s snoring.

Sister said in her whispered voice: “Psst…Ellen, I read somewhere that if you make a noise louder than the snore, the snoring stops.”

Ah Ha!! We had a hypothesis!

Our first brilliant attempt was to flush the toilet. Cause we all know hotel toilets are darn loud! Not Squeeky the Magic Toilet loud, but loud. So I scurried across the room in the pitch dark hurdling brothers, made it to the bathroom and flushed the toilet. To no avail Dad kept it up. So for good measure, I flushed again. Even the double flush was not stopping him. I crept back to bed.

Next we tried to make something fall louder than the noise. I remember jumping on the bed, dropping a shoe, and tossing a tissue box. Nothing. He was in the groove!

Feeling defeated I tried to will myself to fall asleep. And then like a bolt of brilliance out of nowhere Sister just snored as loud as she could. “Waaaaaa! Chooooooo!!” I mean it echoed around the room it was so loud. The ensuing silence was inspiring......unbelievable......hysterical!! We climbed under the sheets like five year old children laughing and giggling and trying to stay quite. She had snored so loud it woke him up. He stumbled around the room for a few minutes, got a drink, settled back in bed and immediately started up the concert again. But we had proved it!! Hypothesis confirmed. A louder noise will stop snoring. This episode of The Wizard of Haws brought to you by Bill Nye the Science Guy.

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