Monday, March 21, 2011

Too Late To Apologize?

I was recently out of town for a school function. It was the speech state tournament. Very competitive and we've been working for this for a long time.

My roommate was going to be the team mother - a strong black woman that I enjoyed very much. She is an ex-marine and a mom of three kids somewhere in her early thirties. Sometimes her mothering bled over into her interactions with the teammates but most of us enjoy it.

The first thing she asks me as we're unpacking is if I snore.

This is a difficult question. I sometimes snore, but not often. If I'm extra tired, sick (congested), stressed or drunk I will snore. The volume is dependent on how much of each thing is true. I told her as much and she told me not to worry, she had earplugs.

All is well until the final day. I wake up realizing I had slept through the wake up call and my alarms. It wasn't too bad considering I wasn't performing that morning, I was just supposed to watch others, but then I noticed Team Mom was up and dressed and being very quiet. This is unlike her. I immediately sense the awkward. Something is wrong, something is bothering her. She had been bugging me all weekend about practicing and I took it in stride and let her be all motherly and when I had enough I left.

As far as I knew there wasn't anything wrong since I hadn't said anything.

It wasn't until I was halfway through packing (I didn't want to ask her what was wrong, I didn't feel like playing that game) that she spoke up.

"You were snoring so loud last night."

I wasn't too surprised considering I had three of the four issues that usually make me snore. I blubbered an apology, offered to buy her coffee (which she turned down saying she already had some) told her she could have woken me up (which she claims she tried and it didn't work. I believe her) and I was so sorry. She nodded and kept packing until I ran out of things to say. We worked in silence for a while.

After a few more minutes I told her that I wish there was something I could do because I still felt bad.

"You should feel bad."

It was that moment that I stopped feeling guilty. It's embarrassing enough to snore but it's obviously not something I did on purpose. It's not like I went to bed the night before and cackled to myself about how I was going to snore SO LOUD that people in the room next to us would complain! I did everything I could to make it right, apologizing multiple times, offering coffee or breakfast and not once did she tell me it was okay, or it wasn't that big of a deal or even joking demand coffee for a month.

She was seriously upset with me over a condition that I have. It's not even like I snored all four nights, it was just that one and it wasn't even a night before we had to perform. I concluded she was being dramatic. I finished packing in silence, grabbed my stuff and left the room.

How DOES someone make that right? It's socially awkward enough to get caught snoring but to have it held against you? Is that okay? Was I wrong? Should I still feel badly and get her a Starbucks card?

I don't get people.

-E

2 comments:

  1. If she was serious when she said you should feel bad, like offended serious, like she really thought you did it on purpose serious, then you definitely should NOT feel bad. I only say this because sometimes people say something like this facetiously. Who seriously says "You should feel bad" about anything, let alone something you can't control? Who acts this way?
    It Just Got Interesting

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  2. I snore. I don't have to have a cold, or be drunk, or anything like that. I try to be as polite as I can about by warning them and sleeping as far away as possible but that's as far as I'm going to go. I can't control it and don't feel I should be held accountable for it.

    If she cant get over the fact that she lost some sleep over one night because of something that cant be controlled, then shes going to be very disappointed throughout life.

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