Hope You Are a Monkey Woman, Too

Sep 27, 2010

I was lying awake, reading, when Deborah came to bed. She got herself a glass of water, took her clothes off, crawled under the covers, and sighed. She stared into space, processing the day's events, I suppose.

"Everything okay?"

"My ear hurts," she said. "Can you see inside and tell me if it looks red?"

"I can't see a fucking thing, it's too dark in there. Here, come over by the light." She leaned over. I held her head in my hands until the light shone just right and I could see what looked like a rough, red patch near the opening of her ear canal. "Hmm. Yeah, looks irritated."

"Why?"

"Gee, I don't know, maybe because you're always stuffing things in your ears."

"What are you talking about?" she said, while knowing full well what I was talking about.

"Headphones, Q-Tips, earplugs."

Our previous apartment building was a party-time flophouse. Hipsters came and went at all hours of the day and night, drinking, laughing, fighting in the hallways, breaking bottles and windows, slamming doors. It's part of the reason we moved out. Before we did, however, Deborah got in the habit of wearing earplugs to stifle the wild sounds of wayward youth. Our new apartment is utterly noiseless by comparison. Sure, the cars can be heard hissing down the expressway outside our window, but it only takes a little imagination to pretend it's the ocean. It can be quite relaxing if you let it. "I don't know why you still wear earplugs at night."

"Every little noise wakes me up," she said. "And once I'm awake, I can't get back to sleep. I can't sleep without them anymore."

"Never put anything in your ears except your elbow," I said, "And even then, only if it's wrapped in a towel."

"You always say that."

"That's because it's worth repeating. My father told me that. Just as his father had told him. It's time-honored wisdom."

"Okay, grandpa."

"Grandpa?"

"Yeah, you and your old-fashioned sayings."

"I see, you don't have any respect for knowledge handed down through the generations, eh? You're better than that, are you? You and your new-fangled ideas. I bet you think we all came from monkeys."

"Shut up."

"I'm surprised. I mean, you knit, you listen to old-time radio, you refuse to read anything written since 1949. You even like Mel Torme."

"That's different,"

"If you say so, grandma."

She shimmied further under the covers and got settled, then reached for her earplugs on the nightstand. She put them in her ears for a moment and took them out again. "I'm gonna try to sleep without them," she said, then turned off her light, put her head on her pillow, and went to sleep. In fact, despite all the old fogey talk, she slept like a baby.

When she can't sleep, she usually goes into the living room and lies down on the couch to read. Eventually, around 5 AM or so, she falls asleep and stays on the couch until morning. When I woke up and saw her still sleeping next to me, I knew she'd slept well, but I asked her anyway, "How'd you sleep?"

"Great."

"I hate to say I told you so, but...Wait, I take that back, I love to say I told you so."

"You're the one who suggested I start wearing earplugs in the first place."

"There's a time to reap and a time to sow."

"Whatever, monkeyman."