I Love Living in Florida

I have an inability to get to sleep sometimes. Well, kind of a lot. I wouldn't call myself an insomniac, because I usually sleep every night, but it's usually no more than 4-6 hours. This is why I'm cranky when I wake up. Almost always. Just plain cranky. Don't speak to me within the first 20 minutes of being woken up unexpectedly.

Since sleep is precious, you see, I become rather consternated (spell-check says that's not a word. I beg to differ. I just used it as one. take your red squiggly* line elsewhere). So, last night, at 2:35 in the morning, it sounded like my upstairs neighbors dropped an anvil on the floor, jarring me from my about-to-be-asleep state. I've had issues with them before, so I was not pleased at all that this was happening again. I considered pulling a Mr. Heckles, and banging the end of my broom on the ceiling obnoxiously. I considered another nasty-gram expressing my displeasure at the recurrence of the noise problems. But I knew if I got too riled up, I wouldn't get to sleep at all, so I let it go, and went to sleep.

A friend of mine was chatting with me today about how she'd been up late playing with her dog and a similar loud noise terrified the pup. I mentioned how weird it was that we both heard my anvil-dropping neighbors, considering she lives 20 minutes away from me in a house that has no upstairs at all. I learned that the noise wasn't in fact my neighbors, but the sonic boom of the space shuttle Endeavour returning to our atmosphere.

You got lucky, upstairs neighbors. This time.





*"Squiggly", incidentally, is a real word and doesn't get a red squiggly line beneath it.