Thursday, February 09, 2012

The Husbean and the Pea

So, it's February, about time for my usual flurry of posts before I go dark for the rest of the year.

Today's post is about my Husbean (Husband). Some of you might recall that I got married in October last year, so he will henceforth be called the Husbean. I like adding the word bean after people's names, so this seemed like a natural evolution.


Ahem, anyway, there was a story here somewhere, oh yeah:

The Husbean and the Pea.

- This is what I was muttering in irritation against my pillow as I dug back under the blankets around 4am this morning, prior to a wide-eyed insomnia which lasted about a half hour. How did he warrant such a title? Well, are you familiar with the story The Princess and the Pea? In this children's story, a Princess proves she's truly a princess by her finiky sleeping habits. She can literally feel a pea placed underneath the bottom mattress of 40 she's sleeping on (Note, I think the actual number of mattresses isn't pertinent. The point is there are TOO MANY for her to know there was a pea beneath them). She proves that not only is she a pain in the ass, but that she's a ROYAL pain in the ass.

Last night, or I guess it would more accurately be this morning, I awoke because my husband had awoken and was galumphing about. Once awake, and after asking what he was doing and receiving his sleep yet intelligible answer, I could barely hear in the distance a recurring beep. Apparently it was the alarm system telling us that one of our smoke detectors had quick. The alarm in question was squeaking a louder, yet less often manner - and was impossible to locate as it was being over-come by the alarm system beeping. I mused sleepily: WHY DOES THIS ONLY HAPPEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE $&*#ING NIGHT? It was approximately 5 minutes later that the Husbean's cell phone rang. It was the alarm company wanting to let us know that one of our fire alarms was out and were we ok.

It was at about this point that I decided to get up and figure out where the damn thing was. The alarm company did call a second time, by the way. And we did eventually find the "hallway" smoke alarm it was trying to warn us about---in my fiber room.


But why is this called the Husbean and the Pea? I sleep closer to the alarm (if only by a few feet), I sleep with nothing in the way, no ear plugs, white noise, etc. I slept through the alarm and the alarm about the alarm. My husbean - who sleeps with earplugs and sometimes cotton in his ears (yes, literally), who also has a CPAP mask strapped to his face and a machine next to his head woke up the second it started going off. Much like the Princess and that fateful pea....he sensed the disturbance in the force and was awake.

So why can't he wake up when his alarm goes off at 6:30?









1 comment:

Sarah-potterknitter said...

That's nothing, you should see my husband sleep through 2 screaming toddlers IN THE BED BESIDE HIM! Heard a study lately (radio lab maybe) where they ranked the noises most likely to wake a person up by gender. For women baby crying was first. For men is was something crazy like a cricket.