It's Raining, It's Pouring...

Snoring. According to the dictionary it's when someone can't help but "breathe during sleep with hoarse or harsh sounds caused by the vibrating of the soft palate." Or, in my experience, it's when someone is being a real asshole. I have no idea what it is about that sound but no matter who it is, and how rational I try to be, while tired and cranky, there's nothing that can convince me it's not on purpose. No matter how nice they are, as soon as they lie down, suddenly in my mind they become cruel sadists mocking my weak attempts to ignore their breathing.

We went on a ski trip this past weekend, and my wife and I shared a room with her brother and his girlfriend Kayla. I had some trouble sleeping due to Kayla's trouble breathing. Not an uncommon occurrence I know. Some people even have spouses that snore, which seems inevitably to lead to separate sleeping rooms. The funny thing is, and I am sure there are exceptions to this, but out of all the friends I had in high school whose parents ended up sleeping in separate bedrooms because one was a snorer, it was well after they had been married. Is there a rule out there that says you have to at least try and sleep in the same room for 10 years before deciding enough is enough? Were relationships at this stage still that fragile?

Maybe it's because it seems so petty. To the snorer, they likely have never heard themselves, and I assume by the way they vehemently deny the fact they snore the first time they hear it, they are a little embarrassed by it. You can't help but feel like a jerk making a big deal out of something they can't help. It's the same feeling I get when I can't control my loud sighing and dramatic eye rolling when I get stuck behind old people walking up the stairs. With snorers, I get that there's nothing they can do about it. I even sympathize, just as I sympathized with Kayla whom I kicked out of our room in the morning. But what other choice do we have than simple avoidance? We have to assume those spouses that finally made the split to a separate bed tried everything for those ten years before settling on the only solution.

Yet, we still fight it for some reason. I am 26, I am well aware how crotchety I am, I don't know why I still find it impossible to simply avoid these situations. There's some honesty lost in the sympathy felt for snorers. After my experience last weekend though, I doubt subjecting people to my passive aggressive behavior in the morning is any better than being honest and telling a snorer, "I can't be anywhere near you tonight, you're too disgusting when you sleep."