To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...

I need sleep.

Four weeks ago, at exactly the two thirds point of the school year, my six-person roomming group engaged in its biannual migration. As part of some "tacit" agreement I supposedly made in September, I was cruelly expropriated from my secluded single down the hall and relocated into a double directly off the common room.

I have slept a grand total of 14-and-one-quarter hours at school since.

THE basic problem is that my common room is to noise what the eternal flame is to illumination. If the radio isn't blaring, my roommates are on the phone. If the phone isn't in use, they are laughing about their Ec 10 problem sets.

It's very hard to go to sleep during a chorus of "Show the effects on consumption graphically? How's this for graphically?! H A H A H A - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I am not the type who thrives on insomnia. In fact, I need at least 10 hours of sleep each night to be the charming, intelligent, thoughtful boy my mother loves. Over the last month, I've been irritable, grouchy, insensitive and mean. I've been ostracized by my friends in dining halls and spurned in the classroom. I did get punched by three final clubs, however.

My roommates are about as sympathetic to my plight as General Sherman was to the South. "What?" they sneer. "You have a problem with 'Back in Black' at high volume at 4:30 in the morning?"

I've tried reasoning with them. I've tried bribes. I've even threatened to take the glop off the shower drain and throw it in their beds. One night I was so frustrated that I thought back to what my father would do when my siblings and I made too much noise late at night.

"Shut the hell up!" I yelled, kicking open the door to the common room. "Your mother and I are fed up with all this noise! It is 10 p.m.! 10 p.m.! 10 p.m.! Do you realize how early I have to get up?"

Again, failure. My roommates simply responded "get a noise machine if you can't sleep" or, my personal favorite, "get earplugs."

THE logic behind noise machines escapes me. They eliminate all bothersome noise by creating more bothersome noise of their own. They are like having dying sheep in your bedroom.

Earplugs would be a fine alternative were it not for the severe health risks involved. After my mother told me about the boy who mistook his earplug for a giant raisin in the middle of the night and choked to death, I have diligently avoided all earplugs. And raisins.

My roommate also suggested folding my pillow over my head and sleeping on my side. Not only does this not eliminate enough noise, but the one time I tried it I nearly suffocated to death. I wonder why he suggested it...

Only one sleep technique has worked. Each night I program a sequence of soothing music which delivers me into a deep and peaceful slumber. As soon as the sequence ends, however, I'm up. Without input from the compact disc player, the speakers pick up a local rap radio station.

To eliminate this problem, I tried to play the relaxing music all night. But I only succeeded in firmly implanting Barry Manilow's "I Write The Songs" into my subconscious--a fate worse than death.

LAST night my roommates tried to feed me the lines "Didn't you get enough sleep over spring break? Aren't your parents the ones who go to sleep at 10 p.m.?"

My parents go to sleep at 10 p.m. so they have enough energy to wake me up at 7 a.m. Yesterday I had to catch a 9 a.m. flight to Boston. It takes 20 minutes to get to the airport. They woke me up at 5:15. (I wish I were joking.)

How many hours can you spend in Alberquerque International Airport?

Basically, I'm too tired to finish writing this column. If only my roommates could understand how much sleep means to me, maybe they would speak in whispers after 11 p.m. and tiptoe around the common room. Maybe they would learn sign language!

Or maybe they'll give me the single back.