I’m singing Old MacDonald which is a nursery rhyme with farm animals and their sounds. My husband is joining the kids and me for the first time, and I pause to let him choose the animal.

Me: “And on that farm he had a…”

Husband: “Soybeans.”

Me: “Soybeans!?”

Husband: “My grandad owns a farm, and he grows soybeans; he should have them in the song.”

Me: “Soybeans don’t make a noise, you need something that makes a noise. What noise would soybeans make?”

Husband: *After thinking for a second.* “Whoosh?”

And so, with a whoosh whoosh here and a whoosh whoosh there, we had a new verse for the song.

Apparently, a family BBQ that I missed turned into a bit of drama involving an altercation between my dad and an in-law.

I overheard my mom on the phone with the in-laws’ spouse, discussing what to do with their husbands. The morning after the BBQ. I am just waking up to hear my mom’s side of the conversation with zero context.

Mom: “Look, I know your husband is a police officer.”

Pause.

Mom: “Yes, I know that [Dad] said, “f*** the police”.”

Pause.

Mom: “But if your husband hadn’t gone straight to punching, he would have heard him follow up that statement with, “Sting’s solo work is much better”.”

It’s summer break, and I’ve been enjoying time off by playing videogames until late at night. I’m also suffering from summer allergies, so I have trouble falling asleep unless I’m really super tired, which doesn’t happen until around 3 or 4 AM.

Mom: “You need to stop staying up so late! I bet that’s why you’ve got a cold!”

Me: “No, I don’t have a cold; there are a lot of allergens in the air.”

Mom: “But it doesn’t help that you’re staying up so late. It’s still bad for you.”

Me: “I’m breathing the same allergen-filled air whether I’m awake or asleep.”

Mom: “You’re not a scientist.”

Me: “And you are?”

Mom: “I’ve been on this planet longer than you have!”

Me: “And yet it’s not my internet search history that contains scientifically sound questions like, “Can Ivermectin cure my gay son?” is it?”

Mom: “I told you I was just browsing!”

The TV is on in the background. It’s some nature documentary, and it’s showing bats looking after their babies, or pups.

Mom: “Wait, they skipped the egg part.”

Me: “What egg part?”

Mom: “They just went from the bats having no babies to having babies. When do we get to see the eggs?”

Me: “Bats don’t lay eggs, Mom. They’re not birds.”

Mom: “They got wings! They’re birds!”

Me: “Not everything with wings is a bird.”

Mom: “Yes, it is! If it’s got wings, it’s a bird. That’s the whole point of being a bird.”

Dad: “Hmm, then I’d better update my doctor to let him know I’m allergic to bird stings…”

Me: “Oh no! There’s a bird in my soup!”

Mom: “…Shut up!”

I rent a basement room in a large home shared with many others. There is one other woman who rents a room in the basement, who loves her TV a bit too much. She has the same televangelist on non-stop, and I mean that quite literally. She’s gone four days straight without turning the TV off or changing the channel on more than one occasion.

The reason I know that it’s a televangelist she is listening to is that the walls between our room are paper-thin, and she keeps the volume up so high that I can hear it so clearly it may as well be playing on my TV.

I’ve talked to her about this many times. She says she will keep the volume lower or start using a sleep timer at night, but she only keeps to her promise for one or two days before she reverts to her previous behavior.

I’ve downloaded a white noise app on my phone and have to keep it running at maximum volume to drown out her tv to have any chance of doing anything in my room, but even with the white noise, I can hear the TV; it’s just somewhat easier to ignore it.

That was until one day when she decided her TV wasn’t loud enough, and turned her volume up even more! Now, even at max volume, my phone could not drown out the TV. I could hear every word coming through loud and clear despite my best efforts.

I attempted to go to bed at 11:30 PM, hearing a televangelist telling me to repent my sins. At 12:00 AM, I’m still awake, being told I should turn the other cheek. By 12:30 AM, I’m told God has plans for me, plans that evidently involve me never getting to sleep again. By 1 AM, I have still not had a wink of sleep and am wondering if the Lord’s forgiveness would extend to my violating that whole ‘thou shalt not kill’ commandment just this once.

So, I headed over to the circuit breaker and flicked the switch to [Roommate]’s room off and back on, figuring that we tripped circuits often enough in the very old and poorly wired house that no one would be able to prove I’d done it intentionally. Then I finally went to bed to the delicious sound of silence.

I spoke with my roommate about the volume of her TV the next day, and it went down to her usual volume at least. But that one night of sleeping in silence was so glorious, I couldn’t help but try the trick again a few nights later. And then a few nights after that.

At this point, my bedtime routine involves padding over to the circuit breaker in my socks as I brush my teeth so I can hit that wonderful magic switch to turn off God’s words for the night. I’ve been doing this for months now, and [Roommate] still hasn’t commented on it. I’m not sure if she has even realized it’s happening. I only wish I could justify doing it when she was awake and would notice.