If You Will Just Hold Your Breath, I Think We Can Get To The Bottom Of This Problem

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has had trouble sleeping for the past week. No sooner does she lay her head down on the pillow than she hears strange sounds. Not the usual strange sounds of Farmer H and his breather. Stranger. Like somebody left on the TV. Except Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is the last one to bed. And she did NOT leave on the TV. Basement: off. Living room: off. The Pony rarely watches the TV in his room at the other end of the house, and the door is closed. Same with the #1 son.

There's always a racket keeping Mrs. Hillbilly Mom awake. Added to the usual agitated emergency outbursts of the watchdogs who sleep in houses under the bedroom window is new canine clatter. The baying of a beagle, much like our old dog Tank. Roo-ooo-oooo-oooooooo! Far away. Down in the woods.

It has gotten to the point that Mrs. HM wonders if, perhaps, she is having auditory hallucinations. There's no medicine involved except Vicks VapoRub. That is not a side effect listed on the box. Mrs. HM slathers that on her chestal area before retiring, and covers it with a washcloth so as not to slide around like a greased pig. Does Vicks VapoRub make one's hearing more sensitive? Nobody else seems to hear the commotion in the wee hours. Is it her knack for sensing spirits that enables her to hear such odd sounds? Like two nights ago, for instance...

I tucked my chin down to hold the washcloth over the Vicks VapoRub area while I folded back the quilt and three feet of sheet that was wont to strangle me. I restacked my pillows after an invasion by Farmer H's beefy arm. Then I gingerly, so as not to wake the sleeping beauty Farmer H sawing logs into his breather dislodge my Vicks VapoRub chest-cover, slipped into bed and tucked in my extremities. Ah...sweet dreamland awaited. But it didn't. I heard the call of a didgeridoo! In the key of A, I think. And then some chanting. Odd chanting. I couldn't make out the words. Just a lot of people chanting. Was this some otherworldly message I was meant to receive? Was my sleepy subconscious replaying some of that Stonehenge video I showed before school was out, with the original builders having their solstice ceremony?

As you might surmise, this nighttime sound issue is a bit disconcerting. I try to occupy my mind with pleasant thoughts and detailed actions. Retirement coming up soon, you know. I name the Duggar kids in order of birth, and reverse. I sit down and eat a favorite meal at a college hangout. Mmm...cashew chicken with fried rice, shrimp eggroll, can of Dr. Pepper. Attend a class taken for my master's degree at Fort Leonard Wood. Negotiate for a new car with an exasperating salesman. But the noises are still there, demanding my attention. It's hard to breathe against the rhythm of those chanters. So I stop. And the noise stops.

Do you know the many sounds that emanate from your very own alveoli when your lungs are congested with a cold or the flu?

You would be amazed.