I Can't Get No Sleep
Insomnia is a motherbitch.
Most of this year, I’ve been surviving on roughly two hours of sleep a night.
In July, my parents and brother arrived for a vacation. We were staying at my grandmother’s house. I already couldn’t sleep in the comfy queen size I’d been lounging in, but soon as the fam arrived, I got relegated to the shitty bed (a perk of being the baby of the family).
It was called a ‘fold away cot’ and I felt as soon as I sat on it that I might fold away in it. It was, hands down, the most uncomfortable thing to ever be passed off as a bed. It was also, approximately 12 inches wide. If I tried to turn over, to the right, I crashed into the wall, to the left, I fell off the damn thing.
And I’m a sprawler when I sleep. I need space. After a few nights of repeated elbow dislocation from trying to turn over, I could take no more.
I took my blankets and set up camp in the living room. But the sofa couldn’t accommodate a good sprawling either. I took the sofa cushions and set them up on the floor. That was my bed for the next three weeks.
Then I subletted a place for a month while waiting to move into my apartment. I could never get comfortable in the sublet, living out of suitcases etc.
Towards the end of the month, people moved into the apartment downstairs. They were students (strike one). They were crazy noisy (strike two). They had terrible taste in music (strike three).
I don’t mind a bit of noise. It’s to be expected when you’re living in close quarters. But if you’re going to be ridiculously loud, you should at least have been blessed with the ability to distinguish between music which brings joy to the soul and music which frikkin’ sucks.
One night (I’d had my wisdom tooth taken out that day and was moving house the next morning, so could have used some rest), the students decided to have a party.
I don’t object to a good shindig. I do, however, object to ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls being played on repeat till 5AM.
I pretty much never feel the need to ‘zig-a-zig-ahhhh’ (especially not in the dead of night), but I did want to zig-a-zig-kick someone’s ass.
I didn’t even want to tell them to turn it down. I just wanted them to get some taste. I would’ve happily DJ’d the party for them. My iPod kicks some serious behind.
I lay awake all night listening to the muffled sounds of Mel B and Co tell me if I wanna be their lover, I gotta get with their friends. Oh piss off.
Needless to say, moving day was a sweet relief.
So, I finally get into my new place and thought this would be the end of my sleeping woes. But alas, no.
One Friday, as I got home from work around 7pm, I noticed the guys across the street (students, grrr) were having a party. They were all hammered and acting retarded, but at 7pm, I didn’t really care.
By 10pm, they were outside butchering my favorite karaoke tune (Don’t Stop Believing by Journey – I mean, if you’re gonna do it, do it right, damnit) and I was starting to get a little pissed.
The later it got, the more people came to the party and the more determined they became to have it outside. (I wouldn’t have cared if I didn’t have to work at 9.30am the next day).
Then finally, at 1.30am, came the straw that broke the camels back.
Some fool at the party broke out the bagpipes. Fucking bagpipes. And treated partygoers to a rousing version of an indistinguishable tune in the middle of the street.
I let the slaughtering of Journey slide, but this? Bagpipes? Hell to the no. Bagpipes are like the musical equivalent of nails on a blackboard. There’s a reason they’re usually played on the Scottish highlands with no one around for a couple of hundred miles.
I look out the window and see the Pied Frikkin’ Piper and his band of Merry Men (and women) all doing some ridiculous drunken jig. Damn, I was so ashamed of my people. White people can’t dance at the best of times, but throw alcohol and some bagpipes in there and it’s a complete clusterfuck.
About 20 seconds pass and I’m convinced I can feel my eardrums starting to bleed. Then, I transformed into a middle-aged woman and called the police. I couldn’t believe I was actually calling the Po Po to make a noise complaint, but everyone’s got their limit, Bagpipes are mine.
“Would you like to speak to the officer when he arrives?” the operator asked.
“No. I would, however, like you to create legislation whereby the ownership and usage of bagpipes is illegal and arrest his ass.”
Apparently, they couldn’t do that, but they would shut down the party. Good enough.
As I sat at the window, watching them, waiting for the 5-0 to arrive, I got more and more pissed off that, with all the people at this party, not one of them had taken the initiative and beaten this guy up. What the hell kind of people were at this party anyway?
I’m telling you right now, any party I go to, if someone pulled out bagpipes, that dude would get the most brutal beat down of his life (not necessarily by me, ‘cause I’m a lover, not a fighter – but I hang with people with great taste and big muscles).
Who even owns bagpipes? Then pulls them out at a party and actually plays them?
Anyway, the Po Po came and shut it down a half hour later – by which time I was wide awake. So I turn on the TV, watch it till I doze off at 5am and start yet another day on 2 hours sleep.
