If I were a defense attorney trying to stack a jury with those who understand temporary insanity and murderous intent, I would ask only one question.
Does your spouse snore?
If you're a regular visitor to this space, you know that Charlie is one heck of a guy. Pets and small children adore him. If my brother could save only one of us from a burning building, it wouldn't be me.
But once the lights go out, he's a window-rattling, chandelier shaking, decibel splitting monster. Mr. Hyde has nothing on this guy.
In the initial "we all have our foibles" stage, I confessed I could not fall asleeep without the television on, figuring an offset between the two annoying habits.
It was soon clear a television can only go so loud, so things shifted to the over-the-counter stage. All those little nose strips and special sprays demonstrated effort on his part but no result. Earplugs force me to stay awake lip reading the television.
After eight years, I know there are two ways to win. I can pass out after an ever increasing number of glasses of wine or fall asleep soundly before him out of sleep deprived exhaustion. Neither is a great idea.
The most common scenario has him really tuning up about 2 a.m. with me in a sleepy stupor trying to decide whether to get a tape recorder to introduce him to my world the next morning... or find a gun.
Since both require a certain level of alertness, I try to go back to sleep by gently rubbing his shoulders to make him stop for a moment, eventually poking him square in the back. The subsconscious arousal brings several golden seconds of silence, followed immediately by the racuous refrain.
This is the place where I become more alert by channeling my energies into diabolical possible plotlines for my mystery books.
An anti-snoring vigilante doesn't seem like a great series in the daylight, but at about 3:15 a.m., she is brilliant.
And I am wide awake.
So I move to the living room couch like we've just had a sitcom spat. We have, except he slept through it.
As much as I love that man, I must confess that at that moment, I hate him for his slumber. It's mine. I want it. I can't believe how cruelly he can take it away. Diabolical does not begin to describe it.
Experience tells me that if I go to the computer I will stay up all night and write gibberish. If I stay on the couch long enough and lose my murderous rage in a television program I will fall back to sleep sometime between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.
Four is much better than six in that his alarm goes off at 6:30 and he's soon in the adjacent kitchen making the normal noises of one who has enjoyed a full night's sleep and is heading for work.
And that, your honor, was the final straw.


Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs