My mom and Dad did their best to raise me to be a lady and what they themselves could not teach me they left up to the school I spent my early years in. Neither of them may have succeeded entirely but whether or not I am one, I believe I know the principles behind the ideal.
Ladies do things like tuck handkerchiefs into their sleeves. They curtsy. Always say please and thank you. They pee eau de cologne and never do the foul things that men are guilty of. Most importantly, they do not snore.
Or so I thought - until my arrival in the UK on Tuesday.
After a long trip from New York (on Air India - nogal) I was exhausted. Bar the fact that I had seven hours of jet lag to deal with I also hadn’t managed to sleep on the plane. The net result was that when I landed I was a grumpy mess.
Sadly, sleep was not on the agenda as I was not allowed to check into my room at the backpackers until late that afternoon. That meant I had the better part of a day to kill.
When I did eventually return to my dorm that night I collapsed on my bed in an exhausted heap. I don’t even think that the door had closed properly behind me before I was asleep. And it was bliss - for all of 40 minutes.
As the woman opposite me fell deeper into her sleep the respiratory demons took over her body. Their over sized hands blocked her nasal cavities and pried open her mouth so that the only sounds she could make were deep, guttural gargles. Rattling right from her diaphragm up to her tonsils. Louder and louder until she had the rest of the room tossing and turning, trying their best to fall back asleep while she herself was in the depths of Lala Land.
Because my nerves were already shattered I could barely fight the urge to do her harm. So, with what little restraint I still had I dragged myself from my bunk and into the reception area where I asked if I could please change rooms. The receptionist was not happy about my request but understood by my manner that I was not going to take ‘no’ for an answer. And so, minutes later I was in the comfort of a new, quieter bedroom.
Except, as I was on the edge of sleep once more - at the point where I was about to be enfolded by dreams, the woman on the bunk below me fired up her engine.
It seemed that my decision to relocate had been the wrong one. This woman was twice as bad as the one in the previous room.
The thing I hadn’t appreciated about snoring is that it is cunning. It ebbs and it flows, stops and starts so that every time there is a lull in the tide you believe the last gasp to have been the final one. But just as you fall towards sleep once more, it starts all over, shaking you out of your reverie.
It goes without saying therefore, that it was a terribly long night and when I woke up in the morning I was no ray of sunshine. The lady, it turns out, was well aware of the fact that she is a snorer and even went so far as to explain why: her two nostrils had been sewn up to become one in a horror operation that went very wrong.
She apologised for her bad behaviour and despite the fact that all I really wanted to do was kill her, I tried to be as gracious as possible and told her through grinding teeth that it was ok.
And then I went to the pharmacy and bought some earplugs.
‘Good idea’, you may be thinking, but the problem with plugs is that they are not always as powerful as the snorer and sadly these ones failed me. There I was, later on that night, tucked into bed, ears blocked with bits of foam, looking forward a peaceful eve. But it was not to be. Her snorts and snarls were way more powerful than my plugs and I spent another night tossing and turning, wishing my bed would collapse on top of her and silence her for good.
And so, the next morning when it was light enough to escape I went back to reception and requested to be moved again. ‘Third time lucky’ I thought.
But again I was wrong. It seems that all the female snorers in the world have migrated to London and they are all staying in the same backpackers as me. In fact, I am convinced that I am the only one among them who is not guilty of such a sin. Because of this revelation, in the days since I arrived I’ve spent a lot of time being amazed by just how many women are snorers.
Honestly, I had always believed that women who snored were a rare breed, like nearly extinct animals. And truth be told, I liked it that way. In my mind that was how we women were supposed to be: quiet and dainty while asleep. Not like raging sawmills. As I said, this week has changed me and I’ve come to believe that snoring women are, in fact, the norm.
Therefore, I can only admit that my school gave me misguided information and I am, in fact, the exception. Do I come from a family with defective female genes, and am I therefore set apart from all other, normal women? From my experiences this week it certainly seems to be that way. On top of stomaching the fact that I am miserable and sleep deprived I now also have to come to terms with the knowledge that I am far less of a lady that I had once believed myself to be.
L
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