What Is That Bright Orange Glow?
Posted By Kristabella on April 9, 2008
I am a sleeper. I’m pretty sure my mom won’t read the rest of this and will just jump down to comment and be like “yes! You were the kid who WANTED to go to bed!” And she’ll laugh and tell embarrassing stories and then I’ll delete her comments. Kidding. (Maybe.)
But yeah, my life revolves around sleep. I would prefer to get 10-12 hours of sleep a night, if I could. And on the weekends, I usually do just that. When I was a kid, I always went to bed BEFORE my mom asked me. If we were at family functions, I pestered my mom and whined that we had to leave NOW, or I wouldn’t get enough sleep. I was constantly calculating the hours in my head until I would potentially have to be up because I NEED A LOT OF SLEEP.
Even today if I mention to my Grandma that I’m tired she’ll tell me “you were born tired.” Fo Sizzle, Gram.
I swear this post isn’t going to be a snooze fest about snoozing.
As much as I love sleep, I’m not really a heavy sleeper. I hear things in the night that will wake me up, like my cat sliding across the hardwood floor on her nails at 2 AM and then slamming into the wall. I also sleep with a fan on because I can’t fall asleep if I have no white noise. I NEVER sleep well at other people’s houses or in hotels because I start listening to every little thing and then THAT IS ALL I CAN FOCUS ON. Like the ceiling fan in my room that is constantly taunting me with its rhythmic TICK, TICK, TICK all summer long.
Which brings us to today’s story. Are you still awake? My fan is kind of loud. It is a small fan that sits on my nightstand, but as far as fans go, it is pretty loud. That’s how I like it. And why I’ve had it for too many years and it will probably crap out on me the minute I hit publish on this post. It kind of blocks out a lot of the background noise that I deal with living in the city. A city with a lot of drunks.
Back when I was living in California, my last summer there, I was awoken to a beeping noise outside my window. Because I lived on the first floor, I actually didn’t keep my windows open at night, except for the one window in the bathroom. Because it was a little window and I apparently thought I was safe because I could totally take on any skinny burglar that could fit their ass through that window.
Anyway, I woke up to this weird beeping. It kind of sounded like a fire alarm, but it was moving. Loud sometimes, very faint at others. I checked all the smoke detectors in my house and they weren’t the culprit. I checked the radios, the TV, all the electrical appliances. That beeping was NOT coming from inside my house. Since I was intrigued AND awake, I decided to open the blinds on the sliding glass door in the kitchen which looked out to the parking lot.
Well, what I saw was the LAST thing I was expecting to see. The building that was just on the other side of my apartment building, about 50 yards away from my door, was on FIRE! And not just a tiny fire, the building was ENGULFED IN FLAMES! SMOKE EVERYWHERE!
I fucking flipped out! There were fire trucks everywhere! My car was covered in soot. This was a BIG DEAL! I immediately turned on the news and there the local new station was, blocks from my house, reporting on the FOUR-ALARM FIRE that was steps from my house! FOUR ALARM! I thought people only talked about that when it came to chili!
I put on a sweatshirt and went outside to see what the scoop was. I walked out there, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and attempted to talk to my neighbors that I had never met. Nothing brings people together like escaping getting burned to death. So I moseyed on up to a nice looking group of young people and asked the simple question of “what’s going on?”
Their response? “Did you just wake up? DID YOU SLEEP THROUGH A FOUR-ALARM FIRE?”
I meekly responded that yes, yes I did. They were convinced that my apartment was on the other side of the complex because that is the only reasonable thing that could explain someone sleeping through a DIESEL ENGINE FROM A FIRE TRUCK RATTLING THEIR WALLS. Oh, AND THE SIRENS!
“No,” I responded. “I’m the apartment right there on the corner, right there near that blaze. That’s my formerly white car that is now covered in ash.”
They didn’t say much to me then. Because clearly I was psycho or from ANOTHER PLANET because who sleeps through a fire? Aliens, that’s who.
Thankfully it was an electrical fire or something and the building was completely empty at that time. And I’m also thankful that the wind was not really blowing and that when it did blow, it was in the OPPOSITE direction of my apartment. Because who knows what would have happened then.
Instead, I was just lucky enough to get the smell of ash and all things burning blown in my face every time I turned on the air conditioning for the rest of that summer.
About the author
Wake up Kristy
This isnt a dream, its your new alarm clock, it combines a snooze alarm feature AND a smoke generator that wakes you gently to the smell of a structure fire.
My first wife was like you. All she did was sleep. We met in college, and i am a morning person. I would get up and go and get breakfast at the student union. She would get up from her dorm (this was a long time ago kristy, when there were NO coed dorms, in fact, this college had hours for women) she would met me for breakfast, i would then go to my classes, she would go back to the dorm and sleep till noon. When she flunked out that semester, it was at that point that I realized that she never went to classes, she slept her way through school.
LarryLilly’s last blog post..Its been a long time….
Dude, I am the same way, everything wakes me up. When Chris moved in he brought his white noise machine with him, and now I don’t know how I ever lived without it. That thing is a godsend. You know, if I believed in god sending me things.
That makes me think of the time my brother and I slept through a hurricane. On the top floor of our house.
Have you ever tried wax earplugs when you’re sleeping in hotels or at someone’s house? They do wonders for me, and I live next to a bunch of frat boys.
tutugirl1345’s last blog post..I have never hated the children so much in my life…
You pretty much summarized what I would have said about your sleeping habits as a kid…except the head banging as a baby. Delete?
I’m thinking sometimes a little white noise can be a dangerous thing. Or not, in your case.
witchypoo’s last blog post..The Red Tent
I have to sleep with a fan now and I’m lucky to get 7 hours a night. When the sprog was born I heard every time he turned over in the night. I maybe slept 4 hours a night, not consecutively. I am the “awake” baby. My mother couldn’t get me to sleep. I wouldn’t cry or anything but every time she’d go in my room she’d find me in my crib wide awake looking around.
My brother is my polar opposite, she couldn’t even keep him awake long enough to feed him.
Raven’s last blog post..100 best comedies but not according to bravo
Oh Jeebus.
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I have to sleep with a fan on too, even in the winter. I can’t stand silence. And, when I’m in hotels it’s hard to sleep b/c it’s so quiet. When I lived in Chicago, I lived across the street from a parking garage and down the street from a hospital. So, I heard all kinds of noises. My fan helped block out a lot of it. And, of course, my roommate looked at me like I was crazy every night when I turned my fan on. Heh. It helps me sleep.
Don’t feel like a weirdo for sleeping through a fire. It happened to me one time when I was living in a dorm. Granted, it wasn’t a four alarm fire, but it was a fire w/ loud fire trucks, firemen banging on doors, loud commotion, etc. Yeah…if someone wouldn’t have come in and said, “Tara! Get up!” I would’ve stayed in bed until the firemen came in and yelled at all of the idiots who could sleep through a fire.
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From Tom Petty, “Wake Up Time”
And it’s wake up time
Time to open your eyes
And rise and shine
‘Cause it’s wake up time
It’s time to open your eyes
And rise and shine
My wife also has to have a fan on. So she has TWO fans on, the giant B-52 overhead fan and a smaller fan that blows onto her face.
Me, freezing to death since I refuse to stay under covers. I know, I will lay there, legs frozen, but when I grab a blanket, in 2 minutes, I kick them off. I hate legs covered with stuff.
Whose weird now?
LOL
LarryLilly’s last blog post..Its been a long time….
Yikes, I thought you said you sleep erratically, I think that falls under the seriously dead sleeper, dear!
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I soooo LOVE sleeep!! When I became a Mommy I realized quickly sleep goes away. Now the kids are a bit older so I pretend to sleep so Daddy tends to them because nobody likes a crabby Mommy!!
Glad your building didn’t catch fire, that would have been sooooo bad.
I’ve always proclaimed that I have the ability to sleep through a parade in my bedroom, but I think you just reminded me why that’s possibly not such a good thing to be proud of.
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I wish I could sleep through the night like I used to. I’ve become a light sleeper as I’ve aged. I’M ONLY 34!!! WAAAAAHH!
Ashmystir’s last blog post..better late than never!
I’m exactly the same, K… my nan and I are both huge sleepers, she laughs at me every time I tell her I’m tired – and 12 hours a night would be bliss!
alyndabear’s last blog post..Spit It Out.
That is talent!!! I am a pretty light sleeper which is why I NEED TO NOT HAVE ROOMMATES. I can hear every word of their late night phone-fights with their boyfriends. Ugh.
Laurel’s last blog post..Now It’s Your Turn
As a kid I slept through a tornado once. They just picked me up and carried me to the basement. I woke up the next morning all confused, wanting to know where my *real* bed was and why was I on the floor. This theme would repeat itself in later years.
Oh holy hell! How do you wake up to an alarm clock???
Nic’s last blog post..Maybe some good comes from watching Supernanny afterall…
That’s absolutely awesome. Only you!
And can I say, in the brain-sharing department, I TOO can only sleep if there’s white noise going on, or if I’ve taken Nyquil, because I, TOO, listen to every frigging creak and groan, and if people are outside on their lawn having a PARTY! then I am an absolute basket case. I hate this about myself. It’s the reason I’m always tired, I wake up at every little sound.
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Not only do I need white noise I also need my pillows. I actually purchased extra sets of pillows to leave at friends houses in case I can’t drive home.
High maintenance, me?
I usually fall asleep to the sound of the TV. It’s a bad habit, I know. But as it is, I sleep better at my bf’s house (where there’s not TV for me to turn on in the bedroom) than at my own. (Not the getting to sleep part, but the staying asleep part.)
Maybe I should go back to the white-noise of my fan.
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Funny, I was just about to post about how I can’t sleep through stuff lately, yet my husband snores through the tornado siren!
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I really would have freaked the hell out. Good thing you were safe!
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