No Good Night's Sleep (6/365)

There's clattering and clanging in the pipes in my new place.  It's not the gentle knocking one expects from a radiator, though: it's the slamming of a crazed miniature lunatic spinning about with heavy garden shears.  That's what I imagine when the sound feels like it's piercing my ear drums.  It only seems to happen at 10:00 pm and 4:30 am, so I haven't quite slept well since I moved, except for the times I was at my parents' house. I was in a stupor on Monday night when the terrifying, hideous, and appalling noise woke me up and I vowed that something would be done.

I got ear plugs at the drug store that day, although my dad was worried that I wouldn't be able to hear the fire alarm if it went off.  But this is where the story begins to get interesting.

The ear plugs, little spongey fleshy masses, gross me out, to be honest.  But I was willing to overlook that if they helped me to have a restful night's sleep.  I placed them in my ears and they stuck out a bit.  I looked like a Martian.  I padded down to the bathroom and I couldn't hear my feet, but I could feel my footsteps vibrate against the floorboards and back up.  I could hear the whooshing of cars on the street; when I lay on my pillow the earplugs pressed against the insides of my ears.  All night, though I slept, I was vaguely conscious of the plugs and of wondering if they were working, and of listening for the clattering of the pipes.  

I woke up in the morning, in the sunlight, and began to orient myself, and then realized I was hearing the tiniest of bip ... bip ... bips from my alarm, which had been going off for ten minutes.

Last night I put the ear plugs farther in my ears.  They expanded inside like so much sinus congestion, and I laid back on my pillow.  I rubbed my cheek and heard the sound through the bones of my face, more loudly and more resonant than I expected.  I heard brakes whining on the street, and thought they weren't working at all.  I pulled out the left ear plug, and I was greeted by a blast of reggaetón and animated shouting over the same whining of the brakes.

I couldn't get the left ear plug back in right, and I was sleepy, so I gave up.  I pressed my left ear against my pillow, comfortably.   In a moment I started awake, confused at a rumbling and dragging noise under my bed, and realized that the sound of the cars was coming in only one ear; without both working in stereo, I was unable to orient myself to the noise and its location. I lay on my pillow for a moment, fascinated by my experiment in hearing.  I decided that the experiment kept me awake longer than the clanging, and I pulled out the right ear plug, and went to sleep.