The Joys of Being Old: Suddenly I Snore Like a Motherfucker Who Swallowed a Snore Machine

Aging, on the whole, isn’t so bad. There are trade-offs, to be sure, but overall I’ve found getting older to be mostly a positive experience, if you can believe it, largely due to the incredible jackassery my younger self engaged in on a regular basis. It’s easy to view a little gout and the inability to appreciate Soundcloud rappers as a small price to pay for a broader perspective and deeper understanding of the universe around you.

One aspect of getting older that I don’t appreciate is the Sudden Onset nature of many of these relatively minor afflictions. It’s like, you go to bed one night as You, expected and understood as a physical entity, and you wake up as You 2.0 with a bizarre new problem. For example, one evening a year or so ago I went to bed and snored like a motherfucker who swallowed a snore machine.

Jeff ‘The Buzzsaw’ Somers is Supposed to be a Cool Nickname

I can’t swear I’d never snored before, but it was a pretty rare occurrence. I know this to be fact because The Duchess is essentially The Princess and the Pea when it comes to sleep—the slightest disturbance in the force wakes her up. She has transformed our bedroom into a dark, cold, silent cave, and if I move the covers too briskly getting into bed, she pops awake and there are consequences. This is exacerbated by the fact that she goes to bed much earlier than I do, so creeping in there can be a challenge.

I tell you this so you’ll understand that if I was a regular snorer it would have been noted. So, like I said, I went to bed the night before as Normal Jeff, operating as per specifications, and then invisibly transformed into Jeff What Snores Like a Motherfucker, somehow. There was no warning, and it’s been a steady deal ever since. I snore, period. I am now a person who snores. Some fleshy part of my head that I don’t have full control over has gotten weak and lazy in my middle age and given up doing its fucking job.

The Implements

I have an endless, infinite faith in science and its ability to solve all my problems, so I began researching snoring. I installed an App to track my snoring performances, and JEBUS CHRISTUS it was a revelation.

You see, I sleep really well. So initially when The Duchess told me I snored like a motherfucker who had swallowed a snoring machine it’s not that I didn’t believe her, exactly, but it seemed impossible. I slept so soundly, how could I be unaware of this thunderous noise I was making? But the App recorded you when your snoring became noticeable, and I woke up the next day with all these audio recordings of me buzzing away like a character out of an old-timey cartoon.

So I began trying things. I tried Breathe-Rite strips, which open up the nasal passageways, as well as nasal dilators, which do the same thing from the inside of your nose. I tried mouthpieces that adjust your jaw position. I found these things called Theravents that you stick on your nostrils which essentially, as far as I can tell, solve the problem by forcing you to breathe through your mouth. The latter two actually do work, although the mouthpieces kind of irritate my teeth, and the Theravents cause … excessive drooling.

Drool

There are few things that, in my opinion, separate me from the animals. The ability to play video games. The understanding that pedestrians always have the right of way. The knowledge that neat is always the best way to enjoy whiskey no matter what anyone else says. And a lack of drooling.

Now, though, I have a trade off: I can snore and keep my precious bodily fluids inside my mouth like a normal person, or I can stop snoring and wake up with a disgusting flood of saliva everywhere. This is a non-ideal scenario, but since in both cases I am sleeping soundly but in only one is The Duchess not straddling me with a gun in my face like in the film Goodfellas, my choice is clear: Drool.

So there you go: I am a snoring, drooling mess. Happy New Year!