Sleeping

I am notorious for being a heavy sleeper. It's a skill that was born out of necessity.

While I am a notorious heavy sleeper, my family is notoriously loud. I have developed an amazing power to sleep through all sorts of noises over the years because of this.

Since I am a night owl, I stay up late and then sleep in in the mornings. My family is the complete opossite they go to bed early and get up early. As such, their day had usually already involved breakfast, a petty argument or two, and a yelling match by the time I'd get up. There are many times I have woken up idly and comfortably in my bed while they are all screaming at each other downstairs. That's when I either read or go back to sleep. Another skill I've learned is don't get out of bed if there's yelling or screeming in progress. It never ends well.

There have been occasions when the argument downstairs actually led to my mom either yelling at me to get up or, more commonly, yelling at my sister to go wake me up. These were usually dark days.

There are many important arguments and happenings I have slept through that had an impact on future situations. i.e. When I was little my sisters spilt a bottle of nail pollish on the carpet. This is the reason nail pollish was banned in the house and has been contraband ever since. I slept through all of this to wake up and investigate the arguing. For a kid who had no participation or interest in nail pollish, I received a fair amount of yelling that day. For years if my dad caught any of us with nail pollish he'd go berserk and throw it quite violently up into the rocks. This proved very problematic when my older sister was going through her punk phase in middle school and insisted on wearing black nail pollish. (She spent a lot of money on wasted nail pollish that year.)

In the summers when all the relatives (ones I refer to as the crazies) would come and visit for the entire summer, my sleeping powers would serve me well. When I was little and still shared a bed with my younger sister, I would wake up many times to a normal seeming house, then hear all about the crazy rampage MAM had gone on. When I got older and claimed the guest room as my sleeping quarters (see Sleeping Arrangements), I would spend the summer sleeping on the couch.

While for years when my cousin was the couch master, my family attempted to understand the importance of quiet when he was the one on the couch, when I was couch master they seemed to forget I was a person. They would bang around the kitchen (okay they did this when my cousin had the couch as well). They'd blast music. (To be fair my sisters did this normally anyways. It was usually Flogging Molly and it was usually in a half assed attempt to wake me up.) And of course, since I was sleeping in the only room with a tv, they'd watch tv. I swear to god I watched an entire episode of Pushing Daisies in my dreams once. They'd of course have arguments, if not right in the livingroom, in the kitchen right next door. It takes roughly a half hour of constant noise to wake me up in these situations.

Due to years of this training, I have developed an ability to sleep through cannon fire (useful and actually done at reenactments), yelling/screaming matches (useful when marriachi lady cheats on her boyfriend), and loud music (useful when marriachi lady does anything). The only thing I have not managed to sleep through is police raids. Marriachi lady had her door busted down by the police at five am (see Neighbors)  and the police were banging on the door the other day because her and her boyfriend's screaming were heard all the way across the complex. Give me a few more months and I'll probably be able to sleep through those as well. At least if Mariachi lady keeps it up.