This past weekend, I attended the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. I’ve been married for close to 30 years, and it’s been a minute since I stayed at a hotel all by myself for three whole nights.
The last time I traveled beyond family visits without my husband was around 10 years ago. A friend and I attended an artists’ bootcamp. As we sat chatting in the hotel room, we realized we had company. Lots of it. We trapped proof of our company in a wet tissue and took said soggy sample to the hotel clerk who commented wryly, “Huh! We’ve had complaints, but no one has brought us specimens before.”
We still refer to that trip as “Night of the Living Bed Bug.”
Fortunately, the workshop’s contemporary conference hotel was well-appointed, immaculate and insect-free. My room was a lovely shade of quiet.
I was looking forward to that rare commodity. You see, my husband is a TV addict. On the four and three-half days he’s home, Spectrum is a squatter in our family room.
I reveled in how delightful it would be to shower and dress without the dulcet tones of Dr. Who’s nemeses, the Daleks, wafting up the stairs. I didn’t expect to miss the gentle patter of machine gun fire while choosing my attire for the day. And somehow, I knew morning coffee would taste slightly zestier when its flavor is not drowned out by Star Trek's opening theme.
The quiet was the respite I’d been looking forward to since signing up for the workshop last fall.
What surprised me, though, was that I missed the CPAP symphony at night.
Where was that overture of squeaks and squawks that often forces me to wrap my pillow around my head like earmuffs worn wrong by men with spiked, gelled coifs? How could I be missing the wind tunnel/steam pipe sonatas that encourage me to move to an empty bedroom where I can continue relishing the concerto through closed door? I found the stillness almost as brutal as the soundtrack to Alien.
In the bulging silence of the darkened hotel room, I tossed and turned incessantly.
At last, I realized I already had the solution to my insomniance (my term for insomnia mixed with the annoyance at having it). An app on my phone could provide almost any selection of sounds I wished: rain on a tent roof… rain on a tin roof…rain on a hot tin roof….
After 57 minutes of scrolling through and sampling most of the 207 options, I settled on “Zen Garden.” The soothing comfort of birds chirping, wind chimes tinkling, wooden chimes chattering, and (of course) wind and rain rustling through tropical leaves was close enough to my husband’s CPAP Symphony to lull me to sleep.
The next time I travel solo, remind me to make a recording of my husband’s CPAP symphony in advance. In fact, I just may be able to pay for my entire trip by selling it in the online app store and promoting it as a sleep aid for blurry travelers in too-quiet hotels.
— Carol White Llewellyn
Carol White Llewellyn is a marketing and media consultant, writer and media producer who recently self-published the book Laughing with the gods. She's known for warning friends and family: "Beware of annoying the writer, or you may find yourself the subject of a humor post."