Given enough pressure, people will confess to almost anything these days, and will usually feel better for having done it. No bigger load to carry around, it seems, than a sack full of secrets.
But there is one human activity that no one I have ever known will admit to having done, though the world is determined to point it out to the doers of this deed. And that deed is snoring.
The simple act of breathing in and out, while sleeping, should not be a complicated affair and is best done silently, unless you live alone. But for some scientific reason too complicated for me to understand, some people cannot perform this simple physiological function without making sounds of varying decibels, frequency and type, thereby alienating everyone within hearing distance.
Some snorers make high-pitched sounds a tropical bird might find sexy while others just rumble along like an old car with its muffler dragging on the road.
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This is probably about the last serious medical condition left on Earth that can still be made fun of without a visit from the Correctness Cops and snorers have been the bread and butter of many a comedian and sitcom writer over the years.
But for some, it is no laughing matter. Some people even die from sleep apnea, one of the conditions that can cause snoring. They just stop breathing in the middle of the night.
However, from the time we are children and discover that the funniest things in the world are the noises a human body can make, we remain fascinated by snoring. It is not so funny, however, to those who live with a snorer. Divorces have resulted. Spouses – usually the wife – have gone deaf in one ear from years of sleeping beside a dedicated snorer. And in at least one case on record, neighbours called the police in to do something about the man next door who was raising the roof with his night sounds.
Of course, Guinness World Book of Records would have to get a piece of this action, and as a result it has bestowed the honour of the world’s loudest snorer on a man from Sweden whose snoring has been measured at 93 decibels, a level equivalent to that made by a lawnmower.
But there’s a silver lining around every cloud and serial snorers can now profit from their habit. A U.S. company called Breathe Right is putting up some big prizes in its search for America’s loudest snorer. The grand prize winner will receive a year’s supply of Breathe Right products, a $10,000 bedroom makeover, and a trip to the Super Bowl in San Diego, including two tickets for the game, airfare and hotel.
For other poor souls, the cost of snoring has been high. One couple built an addition on their house so the wife could have her own bedroom and get away from her noisy man.
All of this to tell you that my very own family has come up with the ridiculous notion that I snore. If I fall asleep in an easy chair before supper, they are there when I awake to declare that once again I have been in a decibel duel with the TV. This, of course, is pure poppycock. I have also been told that I sometimes snore in the middle of the night. More propaganda.
I needed proof. It came one day this summer when I was slumped over my keyboard in the afternoon so I left the office to have a power nap in my car. It was a beautiful, warm day, so I rolled down the windows, leaned back in my seat and dozed off. Sometime later, a loud sound suddenly woke me up. I recognized that sound; it was the tail end of a snore. As there was no one else sleeping in my car at the time, I had to face facts. I had woken myself up by the sound of my own snoring.
Not only am I the sole snorer in the family, I can’t even sleep on the couch to get away from the snoring.
I once stayed in a B&B on a trip abroad and spent the night listening to two men who slept in the room next door and who both snored like drunken pirates. The sound those two produced was not unlike that made by the airplane which had carried me to the town in which I was just then staying.
Somebody needed to tell them. But I know they wouldn’t have believed it. Committed snorers rarely do. Alone amongst almost all human afflictions, snoring’s symptoms are rarely evident to the sufferer. That is, of course, unless they’re married to someone with a tape recorder.
Or have kids eager to document a father’s foibles and flaws.
Next week: The Tragedy of Flatulence
©2005 Jim Hagarty
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