Everyone has their little falling-asleep nuances. But none I have found more strange than the one that I am currently experiencing. Some people turn on night-lights (but they wouldn't willingly call it that). Some drink a warm beverage. Some people, like me, have a teeny-tiny background noise. I play a movie on my laptop but have the volume so low that it can only just be heard.
Helping a friend move into the home of a bachelor that works away saw me temporarily staying at the same residence as was offered by the man himself. It was quiet and peaceful and we went to sleep early so we may feel refreshed for work the next day. Then the bachelor went on his fortnightly break...
He cracked open cans early in the morning and got around all hours of the day or night in his vehicle or on his quad bike. He had sessions with the neighbour and fixed flat tyres at 7am. But at night, when he went to bed, he did what I thought was rude and strange. He turned the stereo up. And I don't just mean up a dash, I mean up alot. Whatever was on the radio be it ABC or Hot100, it was blaring out of the speakers at goodness knows what decibel! And here were my friend and I, lying in our beds, wondering 'what the hell, could this bloke be serious?'
I slept one night with the pillow wrapped around my head, window and door closed and I could still hear that racket. The following night I just bailed. I'd fallen asleep but around an hour later the bachelor cranked up the radio and hit the hay. I was wild. I felt like tearing out the radio from the shelf and throwing it in front of my car and running over it a few times. Instead I grabbed my swag and threw it in the tray of my toyota and drove out the gates to camp further down the road, away from the din, so I could get some sleep while being attacked by mozzies.
I returned the next morning to find I should have been a little more patient. At some point during the night the power had run out (the solar panels charge batteries which provide electricity for the house. If it's too overcast during the day or too much power is drawn then the batteries run out of power therefore so does the house). I should have waited out for the power outage. I would have got alot more sleep. Instead I camped up down the road to the sound of frogs and crickets and cattle in the scrub. When I woke in the morning everything was soaked in condensation. When I returned to the house, he didn't even know I had left until I arrived back.
But seriously, who does that kind of stuff? Who turns the radio up before going to bed rather than down or off like most normal people would? I know who. They don't have to work (they're on break or have no job). They drink when most people are at work. They come in at all hours and wake everyone up with their noisemaking and their cooking of strange concoctions they regard as dinner. They watch their movies loud or play their music loud and keep everyone else awake. Yeah, I know who. I've lived with a few and I am definitely more than over it!
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