Members of my family have heard terrible noises in the night, which resemble a building going down. After careful scrutiny and analysis, they are now reporting the source of such noises, which turns out -- against anything I personally would have imagined -- to be snoring.
"Mine?" I innocently ask one morning.
"Dad," says one of my children, shaking me awake, "I was down the hall, and I could hear you."
"So?"
"So I was in the bathroom. With the door closed. I could still hear you."
"So?"
"Dad, I was in the shower."
"Oh."
I've been ordered by the sleep authorities to the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center, which sends me enough forms to fill out a bank loan, except that these forms ask every conceivable subtlety of my sleeping and snoring habits.
Do I stop breathing while sleeping? No, but others seem to wish that I would.
Do I wake up from the sound of my own snoring? On occasion, but others report I'm waking them with a certain irritating, or annoying, or infuriating regularity.
Am I bothered by the snoring? For myself, no. Sometimes, as I drift into sleep, and I begin to catch the first symphonic sounds of my snoring, I take great comfort in the buzz. It's a signal that I'm entering a safe, restful, carefree place.
"Is that so?" members of my family have asked, not even slightly pleased at my pathetic little pleasure after I've been out since dawn sweating and slaving with no other motive in my selfless soul than their complete well-being and happiness.
So I take myself, two days ago, to the Hopkins' Bayview Campus on Eastern Avenue, where I meet with Dr. Philip L. Smith, director of the Sleep Disorders Center.
"My family's not too happy with me," I explain, and patiently wait for him to say, "They're not? What's the matter with these savages?"
But, against all odds, he doesn't. He's heard of such things before: Spouses giving each other jabs in the ribs, kicks in the buttocks, moves to separate bedrooms.
And worse.
"Worse than separate bedrooms?" I cry.
"We had one guy come here who was in the Army Reserves," he says. "They went out on maneuvers or something, and they had to put him in a separate tent, away from everybody else. Then we had another guy, a firefighter. The others in the firehouse couldn't sleep, so they had to move him to another place."
Sometime back, I heard a story about a man who was referred to the Sleep Disorders Center -- by his next-door neighbor.
"That's absolutely true," says Dr. Smith. "He slept with his window open, and the guy next door, who lived across the alley, or the yard, couldn't sleep."
Across the yard? This man could snore!
At the end of a physical examination, I wait for Dr. Smith to give me a follow-up date. Earlier, I'd been advised I might be strapped to a variety of electronic gizmos and spend the night while various professionals monitored my snoring habits.
"Not necessary," says Dr. Smith, who suspects he knows the problem.
"Put on any weight?" he asks.
"About 15 or 20 pounds in the last few years," I acknowledge sheepishly, knowing that my shame will never leave the confines of his office.
"Lose it," he says, "and I think you'll lose the snoring."
"But what about these other things I hear about?" I ask. "Like this laser surgery" -- not that I'm wishing for such a thing.
He says Hopkins doesn't buy into it. They think the laser results on snoring are mixed, and some of the successes more psychological than physical.
"What about medication?"
"Sure," he says, and shows me a drug which "reduces the loudness" of snoring by stimulating muscles around the throat to open the passageway, thus reducing any obstructions.
"Any side effects?" I ask.
"Oh, yes," he says. "There's a price for everything."
Among them: frequent dry mouth, infrequent blurry vision, rare palpitations, infrequent impotence.
Oops.
"So you think I'll be OK if I just lose the weight?" I ask.
"Check back with me in six months," he says.
My family can't wait.