Sleeping with the fishes (and seagulls)

Pat Fule
Fule for Thought

 

Lately, my whole nighttime sleep process has reverted to the past. I had always been a kid who could never fall asleep easily, and I always woke up a lot, too. So I’ve been trying things “Doc” has discussed with me. I take a little Melatonin a half hour before bed, I try to read at this same time, and I keep the room cooler than the rest of the house. This has not been popular with Debbie, as she’s the type who likes warm rooms … in fact, if she could, there’d be a fireplace in every room! She does know the room’s too hot, when she sees our old dog desperately panting!
I’ve even bought a clock radio that has three, count ‘em, three different “white” noises to help you fall asleep. There’s the sound of light rain in the forest, with birds singing now and then. That one’s not my favorite, because I always feel like I have to go to the bathroom! I’m hoping I can’t be the only one whose mom toilet trained me by using running tap water! Thanks Mom, every time someone turns on a tap in our staff room, I have to use the men’s room! So, that gentle sound of rain from my clock radio can’t be used. When our kids were younger, Deb had a “rainstick” from one of our tourist stops. When she’d turn it over, stuff inside the stick would run to the bottom, making the exact sound of rain. One trip, our young son commented on a highway that he needed to pee. Sure enough, Deb had the rainstick and began to turn it one way, then over to the other, creating “rain!”
I was definitely worried we’d have our own rainstorm from Brennen in the car, but we did find a gas station quickly! It was pretty funny, though!
The second clock radio noise I tried to use was a heartbeat. This got creepy really fast! I was trying to fall asleep but I kept thinking, whose heartbeat was this? Why was it so strong and loud? How’d they get so close to record it? What happened to the guy with the heartbeat … it was all too much! I didn’t last more than five minutes when I had to switch to the third sound.
It was the soothing sound of waves rolling into a coast, breaking in a nice rhythm. It was going great for a while, and then, every now and then, off in the “distance” of this recorded ocean peace … a stupid seagull squawking! You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought. What genius in the design team of this company decided that a regular seagull cry would help an insomniac fall asleep?!
Like that stupid heartbeat, I wondered all sorts of things about finding that stupid seagull, and ending his shrill squawking! I wondered what seagull wings would be like, served at The Station or Roadhouse! I also felt like I was caught in my own version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”
Only instead of a black raven tormenting me with his one word “nevermore,” I got a stupid seagull!
This also brought back memories of sleeping on a classroom floor with the senior high boys’ basketball team I coached way back in 1984! We were trying to save money for the kids, so we decided that as a bonding experience, sleeping on that room’s floor was a good plan. It was not.
With no “foamies,” a hard linoleum floor is pretty bad. At various times in the darkness, there would be whispers, struggling noises, gas, everything that could, and did, end sleep! Our team manager had the misfortune to be a farm kid whose family also had goats. That is the “kiss of death” for high school boys looking to have fun! Things would get quiet, I’d start to think sleep would come, and then someone would make a goat noise, a bleating sound from the dark!
The voice remarked, “Hey Pete, ‘zat remind ya of home?” followed by howls of laughter! After some initial comments and stifled snickers from me, I finally barked out that they played at 10 a.m., and needed to get sleep! In the last 32 years of teaching, I never slept with a team on a classroom floor again!
So, I’ve decided to give the wave noises another chance, maybe it will help, and maybe if I’m lucky … after a half hour, I’ll hear that seagull get hit by a really big wave! Now that would be peaceful!
(“Fule for Thought” is a slice of life humourous column that appears in the Strathmore Times, written by long-time resident, town councillor, high school teacher, coach, husband and father of two – Pat Fule. If you would like to get in touch with Pat, you can send him an e-mail at Pat.fule@shaw.ca)