Art of noise

Growing up with six brothers I’ve pretty much seen and heard every fart trick there is. So Gorgeous boy cannot surprise me with the shooting gun thang nor pull my finger, nor creak floorboards and get a rise out of me. Yet, somehow, he manages to take me to a new blow-off low. He tenderly leans in to kiss me goodbye. ‘Ah, my boy is still gorgeous’ I think. My heart is sunk: he managed to perfectly time his puckered lips with a trumping bottom. With disappointment I find myself stooping to his level: the only way to stop his fart-fest giggles is by name calling: ‘smelly fart boy’ is neither original nor clever, but it does the trick.

Did bottom burps used to be funnier? Or is it my age and part of the wider problem of oversensitivity in the ear department? As if the boy’s bottom doesn’t make enough noise the kitchen boiler has started to do impressions of the Tardis with a weird whirling wah wah noise. I find switching the thermostat right down puts a stop to all that. If only the boy was that easy to control! Temp zero is fine when I’m cooking and on the move but when you sit to eat supper and your fingers and toes threaten to fall off through cold it is somewhat less than fine. Add to that the fact that we have to remember to shut firmly the Nativity Room door before we sit to eat. Not to keep in the floods, but to keep out the superfastspinthing noise of the new washing machine. With the new space age kit the entire Nativity Room sounds as if it is preparing for take-off. Twice daily. Have made note to self to try to remember to turn down the spin dial before pressing go on the 53 different controls.

So, wouldn’t it be nice to think that when the day is done and you can finally slink off to bed, in the privacy of your own sleep space you might be spared the discomfort of any more noise pollution? For complicated reasons nothing ever gets finished properly in this house, thus our en-suite bathroom doesn’t actually have a door. Consequently at about 5am every morning I hear the upstairs boiler kick in as He-who-must-be-adored starts to run the shower.
This morning I was spared that torture as He-who-must-be-adored was having a lie-in. Instead of the usual morning water torture treatment I had my ears assaulted by his phone. Nothing as obtrusive as it ringing. Of course he wouldn’t dare be that insensitive. Just the usual 5am alarm. Plus snooze. Two or three times. Then texting to and fro between He and He’s team. I really had no idea just how loud each letter of a text being inputted sounds when close to your head in the comfort of your bed in the wee small hours. It was a relief when my alarm finally went.

On re-reading this am worried I sound like a grumpy old woman! Because in truth I’m neither grumpy nor old (not much anyways). At least I can draw comfort from the fact that I’m nowhere near as bad as Supersis on her worst days!