The "shhhh-maker"

I referenced the "shhhh-maker" yesterday in my 'i'm so blah, please feel sorry for me' post. I am feeling better today - thank you for all the thoughtful comments. It was much appreciated. Just got myself in a funk for a day...thankfully just one day (this time).

So what is the "shhhh-maker"? Gosh I probably hyped it up just a little bit more than I should have. Let's go back in time to two Junes ago when Rich and I first started dating. It was probably about July/August that I started sleeping over and the first night I did I remember Rich heading towards an alien like contraption and switching it on. It then produced a sound that sounded like this....."shhhhhhhhhhhh".

Me: Hmmm, new boyfriend, what is that?

Rich: Oh it's this thing that makes noise. I use it every night.

Me: Oh. Like a noise maker?

Rich: No, it's a humidifier.

I looked at the machine.

Me: Ummm, actually...I think it's an air purifier.

Rich: Oh, ok. Sure, an air purifier.

Awkard silence - how does he not know what it is if he uses it every night?

Me: Soooo....

Awkward silence

Me: Really, you didn't know what it was?

Rich: Nope. I can't sleep in silence. This machine makes a shhhh'ing noise that blocks out the silence. That helps me sleep.

Big sigh. Man, this guy is WIERD.

And now we're engaged! haha!! :) Anyway so I found out that evening that Rich can't sleep in silence, nor can he sleep if there is a nagging noise in the room (like a whirring noise, or a dog snoring). So the happy medium is what I now call a "shhhh-maker". It simply makes that noise. And yes, our air is purified at the same time too.

Now when the old and trusty shhhh-maker breathed it's final breath on us two weeks ago, Rich's world came crashing down on him. And actually I have to admit, I had gotten used to it myself so the complete silence was killing me. Rich swore up and down that an actual noise maker would work. I swore up and down that the sound of crickets or an ocean or a Brazilian rainforest would indeed not put anybody to sleep - even the dogs - but I relented and just smiled the day that Rich brought home an official noise maker.

Sigh. I say this with minimal smile on my face but with a huge big fat grin inside...I was right. The official noise maker was terrible. Terrible! Not only did it have an ocean noise but they made sure to add in some sea gulls for full effect. The pitter-patter of the rain made us want to pee. The Brazilian rainforest sound was accented by some kind of wood-pecker. Awful. Aw-ful! Needless to say we returned it right away.

(Big smile inside)...come on - who doesn't like saying 'I told you so'?

We slept without our shhhh-maker for a while until one night this week our tv cable box kept making incredibly annoying buzzing noises and we couldn't make it stop, short of unplugging the sucker. I thought Rich was going to blow a gasket. I almost had him sleep in the guest bedroom because he was so anxious and kept tossing and turning.

So finally last night he had enough and went to Target to find us a new shhhh-maker.

As I took a picture of it yesterday he asked me a very familiar question in our household..."oh are you going to blog about this too?". =) Of course I was! And my bloggies, we are back to our 'quiet' sleep times and I have to say that last night with our shhhh-maker back in action, I slept like a baby.

And on a side note, I have to tell you a little story. When I was blah-ing all over the place yesterday I had called Rich to ask him to grab me some OJ and some healthy popcorn on the way home from work. Now when a girl asks for popcorn to relieve the symptoms of blah-ness, she expects a BIG bag of it, am I right? Unfortunately my dear sweet Rich took my label of 'healthy popcorn' to mean something very different. He came home with a box of these....they are little itty bitty bags of popcorn. See size comparison to the short glass of OJ.

With a smile on my face, I told my co-worker today about it and she said that she was very familiar with the itty bitty bags because that is what she gives her little baby girls for snacks!! :) He tried. He gets a A+++ for trying. And you know what? He's the best!!! Even if he feeds me kiddy popcorn and makes me sleep with a shhhh-maker. :)