by RAF KATIGBAK

Okay. So right now, as I write this, it’s just past 5 a.m. Birds are chirping, the sun’s starting to come up and I still can’t sleep. Before your mind starts concocting any lurid scenarios as to why I’m sitting here typing at five in the morning, let me clarify that it has nothing to do with smart drinks, energy drinks or any other kind of body-fuel beverage. In fact, it has nothing to do with stimulants whatsoever (including the kind that’s usually associated with Al Pacino films, Christmas and guys who don’t call you back even after you’ve paged them, like, a million times).

This sudden bout of insomnia has more to do with an affliction than an addiction. You see, dear reader, right now I’m visiting family in Toronto and I’m surrounded by the S-word. No, not SARS, I’m talking about the not-so-silent killer known as "snoring." Ever since my parents began their nightly nasal noise performance of "Duelling Chainsaws," snoring has been the bane of my existence. When I finally moved out, I thought I had escaped the torture of trembling tonsils for good. But here I am, at five in the morning, bleary eyed on my makeshift couch/bed, trapped in some kind of reverse Nightmare on Elm Street, wishing that sleep would come and deliver me from this hell.

On the air mattress to the left of me, my brother the car buff is doing his best rendition of a V8 engine in full throttle which, when combined with his patented high-pitch nose-whistle exhale, sounds something like a chorus of squealing girls at a Harley convention: "Vroooom… wheeee! Vrooom… wheeeee!" Not one to be outdone, my mother in the adjacent room has met the sonic challenge with her power-tool drone. You know the expression "sleeping like a log?" Well, right now it sounds like my mother is sawing that log in half while juggling three Black & Decker power drills.

No matter what I do, I can’t escape the snore. Recently I had a dream that Bea Arthur was running at me calling out, "I won! I won!" in super slow-motion. Then I realized in the dream I had been entered into a bachelor auction and that I was her prize (needless to say I promptly woke up in a cold sweat). After the vomiting subsided, I discovered that the slow-mo sounds of Bea Arthur screaming "I won!" were actually coming from the nasal passages of the girl lying next to me who was suffering from a sinus infection (which still doesn’t explain the dream I had the next day that involved Bea Arthur and a pair of magical "fishpants"). Ladies and gentlemen, this is a cry for help!

Snore No More Contest: e-mail me your cure for snoring and whoever’s cure works best will not only win my undying gratitude, but also a copy of Train to Reofa, the latest CD by Montreal tech-house duo Les Jardiniers.

Oh, yeah. Don’t sleep on these events this weekend: tonight, June 19, see Philgood and Nivoc at the terrasse at Envy, electro-disco-rock with Felix Da Housecat at Aria on Saturday, June 21, and super-squishy slow jams and power ballads at Slow Dance with DJ Fighters at Blizzarts on Monday, June 23.

Have a happy Fête St-Jean! Diskoakimbo@sympatico.ca

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