The Rude Awakening

Since I forgot to include a brief explanation in my last post, here it is: I'm working on typing up the travel journal that I kept when Sister and I traveled through Europe. Apart from the daily journal, I wrote down stories that I wanted to share when I got back, so I've been typing them up. That's why some of these take place in exotic locales.

This Inverness hostel is really nice. To make it better, we're in a five-bunk dorm with only one other person: a 70-ish-year-old lady. It is the bomb. We got up there around 10:00 pm and she was already in bed, but she'd left the light on. Since we had Mass in the morning, we thought the decent thing to do was have a shower (since dressing nicely isn't an option, we have to make up for it by at least smelling okay). When we got back from our showers, the light was off, but she called from the bed that we could turn on the one above the sink if we wanted (that's right – we even have a sink in our room!). We didn't need it, but we appreciated her consideration. I wasn't very tired when I got to bed, so I lay awake for a while and just let myself be grateful for this comfy room, sweet roommate, the fact that I was clean and actually smelled nice, the fact that the room smelled nice – it was just all so wonderful. I drifted off to sleep in this happy manner...

Now cue the lights! Literally. At about 11:00 pm, the lights flicked on abruptly (there's really no other way for lights to flick on), and the door beeped and clicked to indicate that it had just admitted someone. Extremely disoriented by the rough wake-up call, I sat up a little. I was massively confused by the hat top that I could just see over my top bunk. I made some strange, indiscernible grumbling noises of confusion (I didn't realize I did – Sister told me later), as I held my hand up to the light. The Asian man, as the abruptly-light-switching person turned out to be, looked up at me and gave a small wave in return. That angered me. I was not waving at this man, this disturber of my peace. I had not mumbled a greeting. Don't know what I mumbled, but I am very certain it was not a greeting. The Asian man moved on, and there was nothing for it but to roll away from the light and pretend to sleep when, really, my internal seething was waking me up more and more. It got worse when the guy left. And left the light on. I really wanted to reach down and flick it off. That seemed an appropriate level of passive-aggression, I thought. Actually, what I wanted was for someone else to turn the light off, because my own passive aggressiveness is so passive that it just plays out scenarios in my own head. As you can imagine, this is what was making me increasingly wakeful, as well as increasingly angry. It's a vicious cycle. After about five minutes, the Asian man shuffled back in. Maybe it was our hyper-convincing fake sleeping; maybe he just didn't care, but as the man tottered around, rambunctiously preparing to settle in, he was not holding back. Fart after noisy fart, he was just a lettin' her rip. I was thinking very uncharitable thoughts towards the man. I realized that I was being uncharitable, so I tried to picture him as a little boy, innocent and sweet. Unfortunately, the only image that my rage-festered mind could conjure was a sort of tiny Kim Jong Un, chubby and stone-faced, sitting on a throne in a gold and white tunic, ordering people here and there as his mother sobbed in a corner, distraught at what her little boy was: a dictator who abruptly flicked lights on and farted noisily as he pleased. It was like a ball of rage had formed in my chest. It was hot and squirmy, like when you put a cat in your jacket and the cat does not want to be in your jacket. That's what my chest felt like. That's not something you can fall asleep easily with. After a few more trips in and out (always, the light was left on), the man finally flicked the light off and went to his bunk. You may be wondering why I wasn't concerned about a man being in a woman's dorm. Well, we've been living on the cheap here and, without going into too much detail that would frighten our family, suffice it to say that we've been staying in far worse. Anyway, I did somehow get to sleep without the lights on to fuel my squirming inner cat-monster of rage, but at 12:00 am, I was again awoken. This time, it was not an abrupt light-flick. It was the soft, but determined English accent of our sweet old roommate. “This is a woman's dormitory. You can not be here. You must go!” Said the voice. She must not have realized that our disturber of peace was a man when he initially came in. There was some muttering in another language, and our rescuer repeated herself that the man must go. After a little more back and forth of the lady repeating herself and the man probably not understanding, he went out and returned with a woman. Our roommate repeated herself to the woman. “This is a lady's dormitory; he can not be here. You must go to reception and sort this out. I don't know how he got a key.” The Asian woman said some Asian things, probably trying to translate, though her English must have been poor, as she appeared to struggle. I felt sorry for her, caught in the middle of this. “Lady?” I heard her ask. Sister responded, “Yes. I'm a lady.” I could hear in her voice that she was amused, but also a little exasperated. “Ooooh... Sorry!” The Asian woman said in a thick accent. There was some shuffling and, wouldn't you know, the frickity frackin' light was flicked on again. Abruptly, of course. “Lady,” the Asian woman said, presumably pointing to the ladies and trying to explain to her Asian man. I was picturing what I would do if they asked me to verify my gender. I'm glad they didn't, because sling-shotting my bra down at them would not have been very ladylike, even as effective as it would be in getting my message across. I was somewhat relishing this imagery in my mind as I heard the Asians packing their things and leaving the room. The light flicked off. The rage-cat curled up and cooled off.

It was peaceful again.