Being a Light Sleeper Stinks! (7 Nights, 3 Sleeping Locations)

My 65th birthday retreat final post: Chirping fire alarms, loud TV, and menopausal night sweats, oh my!

Photo made using Canva.

The last night at the Airbnb was a challenging one. As if recovering from having my eyebrows tattooed and my old lady barnacles removed with a heat gun wasn’t bad enough, the chirping fire alarm that kept me from sleeping in the master bedroom forced me back to the couch. You can read my previous posts if you don’t know that story.

I was glad everyone was ready to retire when I was. It should have been quiet in the living room. As my pal Lisa warned me, the chirping of the fire alarm returned. What Lisa failed to tell me was that she slept with her television blasting all night. When I told our hostess Bridgit I would ask her to turn it down, she told me it wasn’t a good idea because Lisa always did it.

Bridgit had offered to give me her room to sleep in instead of the couch, but I wasn’t going to ask her to move. With Pandora worship music on my phone, I put on my headphones to sleep. I found them uncomfortable and decided to listen to my music without them. I didn’t think anyone could hear them from their rooms. No one else is a light sleeper like me. Without my headphones on, when the infernal chirping didn’t bother me, Lisa’s television did.

I figured I was in for a long, sleepless night when it dawned on me that I could sleep in Jill’s room. She’d removed her sheets as requested when she left, so I pulled one off my bed, grabbed my two pillows and the blanket I brought with me, and headed to her room. I threw my sheet on the bedspread and put my soft blanket over me, hoping to get more than the previous night’s three hours of sleep. Despite forgetting to close the pocket door, I couldn’t hear the chirping or Lisa’s TV from Jill’s room.

When Lisa came downstairs to the kitchen for, I don’t know what, the banging around woke me up. I got smart and closed the pocket door. My night sweats weren’t as bad as the previous night because I only drank two sangrias as opposed to the previous day’s bevy of alcoholic beverages. However, the bouncing around to find a good place to sleep made for a long night. I almost got four hours in before finding myself wide awake at 6:00 am.

I knew Bridgit and Lisa had mentioned getting up early, so I made my coffee and headed to my room to pack. I came very prepared and had a lot of stuff to pack. It wasn’t long before the girls came out to make their coffee. We all needed to pack up items from the pantry and the refrigerator. We made a lot of noise, so Cheryl came down to ask what time we planned to leave. I told her I was anxious to get home. I missed my husband and my cat and desperately needed sleep. I hadn’t slept seven hours in the past two nights combined.

Cheryl went upstairs to wake Sandy up, and I went to warm up my car so I could move it. Bridgit had an armoire in her room that she was taking back home. It belonged to her, and was getting beat up at Airbnb. We needed to put her truck at the front door where my car was parked. It was 30 degrees, and everyone’s vehicles were iced up.

Photos of Bridgit and Sandy covering the armoire in the truck.

I neglected to take a picture of the large piece of furniture before we got it into the back of Bridgit’s truck. I assure you it was a project, even for five ladies. With it tied down, we said our goodbyes and headed home. I’m unfamiliar with Texas and have zero sense of direction, so I told Cheryl I would follow her. We both needed to stop for gas, and she said she was going to H.E.B. to get it on the way out of town.

We headed down the road where Airbnb was on, and she made a sudden left turn before pulling to the side of the road and stopping. I pulled in behind her and got out to ask her what was happening. She said she made the turn too early. I joked, asking if she was sure I should be following her. We flipped our cars around, got back on the road, and made it safely to the gas station. After filling up, she got us to the freeway without any problem.

We’d gone about twenty miles when a light came on my dash with a message that said low tire pressure. It didn’t specify which tire, and it made me nervous, so I called Tommy. When I asked if he had checked the tires before I left, he said he had checked all the fluids and cleaned the battery cables, but the tires looked fine. He told me it was probably a faulty message but advised I don’t go over 70 miles an hour. “I’m following Cheryl on Texas freeways,” I barked. He asked if the car was handled differently, and I assured him it wasn’t. He figured I’d be okay with making it home.

I called Sandy, who was in Cheryl’s passenger seat, but she didn’t answer the phone. I left a message telling them that if I disappeared, I was stopping to check the air in the tires because of the warning on the dash. I wondered why she didn’t answer the phone, but shortly after I called, Cheryl slowed down. She pulled into a service station off the highway, so it was evident that they got my message.

Cheryl asked if the warning light specified which tire I needed to check, and when I told her I didn’t, she kicked them all. They all felt hard as rocks, so we hit the road again, confident I would be okay. We were cruising down the highway near Austin at a nice pace when Cheryl suddenly took an exit; when I say suddenly, I mean it! There was no warning whatsoever, and there was no way I could take the exit.

I told Siri to give me directions home and then called Sandy to ensure there wasn’t an emergency I should know about. Once again, Sandy didn’t pick up. I left her a message telling her that I was using my GPS now because there was no way I was getting off the freeway when they did. Instead of calling me back, she sent me a text. I couldn’t check the text while driving on the highway, so I ignored it.

I became worried about Cheryl’s husband, Don, who is battling cancer and going to Austin for treatments a couple of times a week. I called Sandy again and left another voicemail telling her that people driving can’t read texts and that she should call me if something were important. I told her to stop texting me.

When I got home, I squeezed Tommy and told him how happy I was to be off the road. I read my texts from Sandy and found out she and Cheryl were going to Bastrop to meet their husbands for lunch after Don’s treatment. I’ll confess to being irritated. I was so exhausted I couldn’t see straight, and the stressful drive didn’t help. I found out later that the hasty exit was because Cheryl thought she would wind up on a toll road.

I had a lot of stuff to unload and put away. After kissing my cat, Paddy, about twenty times, I got to work. For some crazy reason, I did my laundry and cleaned some cupboards. Without taking my morning walk, I got in over 13,000 steps. When I finally hit my recliner after my shower, I was toast.

I was sore all over, including my face. One of my new eyebrows bled in two places, which Bridgit assured me was normal. She’d supplied me with enough antibiotic cream and petroleum jelly to keep my tattoos moist for a week. I never got any of that stuff the first time I tattooed my eyebrows. I’m sure these will last for many years.

So that is how my one-week birthday celebration ended. Many laughs went along with every challenge. The stressful drive to and from the Airbnb will become a distant memory. The crooked headboard, chirping fire alarm, lousy karaoke, TVs, ice makers, and thermostats that couldn’t be worked without the help of Betsey will make us laugh for a very long time. It was fun sharing it with you, and I appreciate those that came along. I must leave you with one more funny story.

We thought we got all of the balloons popped and out of the car. Apparently, we missed one.

Sandy and Cheryl wanted me to bring my balloons home to Tommy. They wanted to stuff them all in the back of our Explorer because they thought it would be funny. When I refused, they begged me to take a few home. I put my foot down and thought we’d popped each one. When Cheryl made the wrong turn in Kingsland, and we got out of our cars to talk, she handed me a balloon that popped out from under her driver’s seat. I admitted that it was meant to be and tossed it in the back of my car.

I unpacked the entire car and never saw the balloon or remembered it was there. The next day, Tommy was driving the car when a wasp appeared in the driver’s window. He said he rolled down windows and swatted everywhere, trying to get the thing out. When it finally left, Tommy rolled up his window. He said the passenger window was open, and suddenly, a black balloon was leaving the car. When he told me the story, I laughed until I cried. It was a fitting ending to my 65th birthday adventure.

Charisse Tyson is a retired biker bar owner, author, blogger, and full-time RVer. You can follow her on Medium, Facebook, Linkedin, X(Twitter)