Welcome to Lala, Daffy D.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was fooling around trying to find a link to that Mannheim Steamroller song Chocolate Coffee, I ended up on lala.com, a site that allowed me to listen for free to all my favorite songs… once. Now, I don't like to sign up on this kind of website. They always ask for your email address, and shortly after signing up, all kinds of junk email shows up. But I did want to listen to that Mannheim Steamroller song, so I bit the bullet and signed up. 

I couldn't fake an email address (or can I?), so I did the next best thing, I faked my name. Sometime later I got an email that said, "Welcome to Lala, Daffy D." That worked out just fine, they think I'm Daffy Duck, and I can easily trace any email that comes in addressed to Daffy as having originated with Lala. 

Learning to live in an automated world started for me with voicemail menus. I hate 'em. I'm so used to them, I didn't even realize how much I hate them until right now. I'm sick of pressing one for English. I'm sick of accidentally going down the wrong, very long voicemail path and having to start all over again. I hate hearing "press nine to hear these options again." 

Every once in a while, I get in a little snit about technology. It's pointless of course. I always come back around to not wanting to be left behind. If I'd dug in my heels refusing to move forward, I would be missing the entire five seasons, (twenty four, 45 minute, spell binding episodes per season) of Lost on Netflix instant play. 

And when I'm not lost in Lost, I can listen to Pandora.com radio. All for very little or no money. Money being the operative word these days. You've read about my dad's fascination with technological gadgets. Who Broke My Google and What Happened to My Wingdings? Remembering my dad reminds me to have fun with technology. 

Being willing to learn new technologies kept my father young, something I'm glad of, because it allowed me and my sisters to have more to relate to as he got older. And after an experience I had this week, I need all the feeling young I can get. What's more important, looking young or feeling young? Good question eh? While I'm out coloring my hair, you think about it. 

Hey, I didn't say we can't have both. But of course feeling young makes much more sense. While I want to grow physically and mentally decrepit at the same rate as my friends and family members, that's the natural way of things, there's no reason we can't have a little fun along the way. 

Money, however, is a consideration, especially now. My husband Jim used to always buy all his toys one generation older than newest. It saved lots of money and tended to put more reliable products into our hands. Once in a while he'd go for broke though. 

I remember one Christmas when he bought me the latest version of Quicken. He was part geek, and I'm half nerd, so I jumped for joy when I opened it. While the turkey roasted in the oven, and our child rotted her brain in front of her X-box, another indulgence Jim allowed, we sat in my office loading software and entering numbers into categories. Ah, those were the days. 

And these are these days. After Jim died, one of his brothers told me that when they lost their second oldest brother to cancer during their childhood, their parents told them, every fun thing they did from now on, they were to think of it as doing it for those who are no longer here to enjoy it, making feeling guilty into a disservice to the departed. No wonder Jim had such a lust for life. Very good parents, those. 

Now that Jim and my dad are gone, I must remember how much fun they'd both be having with lala.com right now. My dad with his jazz, and Jim with his acid rock and roll. Sometimes I'm sure Jim and Dad are whispering in my ear. How else would I be able to come up with nicknames on lala like Daffy Duck? Living in an automated world can be maddening at times. But I have to admit, getting that first email, "Welcome to lala Daffy D." made me laugh out loud. And that was totally worth it.

© M.E. Rollins

Night Terrors

I know a lot of people my age, couples, who sleep apart.  Not because the spark has gone, not because they are fighting, not because they’re on the verge of splitting up.  No, it’s for a much more odious reason than that.  A reason so hideous, I scarce speak word of it here.  But for the good of all, I must.  In order to talk about this horrible subject, I had to do some serious self examination and face some of my oldest fears.  The reason many couples sleep apart is….

Snoring.  Yes, you heard me, snoring.  I classify the existence of snoring up there with the existence of intestinal gas.  Why did God have to create these two things?  I mean he created the whole world and everything in it, couldn’t he have left out snoring and intestinal gas?  At least gas has the redeeming quality of entertaining ten year old boys.  Snoring, I cannot think of one redeeming thing to say about it.

One of the best stories I ever heard regarding snoring cannot be told here to protect the innocent.  Well, to protect the privacy of someone who would bean me if I ever told.  But I do have a second best story that’s pretty good.  When I was a little girl… How many times have you seen me write that?  Oh geez, she’s going to tell another pitiful story from her childhood.  Please spare us.

No, I will not.  The truth must be told.  When I was a little girl, I had for parents the two loudest snorers the world has ever known.  One night when I was about six, I woke to the sound of what I thought must be a locomotive coming through our house.  Like the Polar Express, only on steroids, without a creepy Tom Hanks conductor, but just as window rattling loud.

I crept from my bed, wandering into the upstairs hall.  “Maybe Mom is sewing.” I thought.  “No her sewing machine isn’t that loud.  Vacuuming?  No, not in the middle of the night, and our vacuum isn’t that loud.”  I went back to the locomotive idea, which terrified me, but was the most plausible answer.

Then my childhood innocence was shattered.  It dawned on me then.  This must be what snoring sounds like.  Now I know there are other night time sounds a child should never have to hear coming from behind their parents’ bedroom door.  That would have been traumatizing enough.  But this?  This was much worse.

With the other sound, at least I would have had some hope of later realizing it’s not such a bad thing.  With snoring, there would be no such hope.  I was a smart kid, and even at the tender age of six, I knew what this meant.  With two parents who snored this badly, the chance of my not snoring as an adult was close to nil.

I walked back to bed, my head hung down, my little dressing gown belt dragging sadly on the ground behind me.  For on that night I learned the ugly truth.  From that night forward, I would have to live with a ticking time bomb.  I knew it was only a matter of time before my innocent little nasal passages would betray me.

This childhood trauma was however, as many childhood traumas are, to go underground for many years.  By some mysterious blessing, when I fell back asleep that night, and believe me it wasn’t easy, my mind was wiped clean of the hideous event I’d witnessed.  Denial is a powerful thing.  A powerfully good thing. Somehow I managed to go into a state of hopeful denial about snoring, which my husband helped me maintain for twenty eight years.  My husband was a very good man.  And also very smart. 

So when a man recently said to me, during a break up, “You snore!”  it was kind of a surprise.  I know, there’s nothing to be ashamed of about snoring.  Most people laugh it off as just another annoyance to deal with.  But for me, maybe because of being so traumatized at such an early age, my fear driven below my own consciousness, it was like a slap in the face.

And now that I’m single again, I dread the thought of having to have the “snoring talk”.  As I’ve stated here, I’d like to get married again, but I don’t like the idea of sleeping separately.  I know lots of people do, but one thing I liked about being married was sleeping in the same bed.

I have a friend who had an ungodly sounding nasal surgery to deal with his snoring.  There was some sleep apnea in there, so I guess it was justified.  The promise was that this surgery would at the same time cure his snoring.  It was at that time I vowed that if I ever got to the place where I snored like my mother, I would do anything to change it.

I guess there’s some residual denial going on, because the “you snore” comment, while it hurt, wasn’t actually “you snore like a locomotive”.  Hope does spring eternal.  I hope to get married again.  I hope to sleep in the same bed as my husband.  And I certainly hope I don’t snore like a locomotive.  Because that surgery sounded like hell on earth.