Like a Storm Trooper

by Gerrard Wllson

“To be perfectly honest, I have a lot of ideas – some good, some less so. Are you really ready for them?”

  Martha nodded.

  “Here goes, then, with the first one. Mind you, the jury’s still out as to which category it fits best into.” Having said that, George stopped talking again.

  “What is it?” she asked, tapping the biro on the notepad.

  “Ah, sorry,” he said, “Got a bit carried away, distracted by other thoughts.” Coughing, clearing his throat, he said, “My first idea...is that I blindfold you each night.”

  “What?” she asked, thinking her husband had flipped his lid. “How can that possibly be of any use in helping me to stop snoring?”

  “Your brain,” he replied. “The way I figure it...if we put a blindfold over your eyes an hour before you go to bed, your brain will be so confused it won’t realise it’s already night. With your brain, thus, bamboozled you will be incapable of snoring.”

  “Bad,” she said. “It’s definitely in the bad category, way down at the very bottom.”

  “As bad as all that?” he asked, disappointed that his first suggestion had gone down so badly.

  “Yes,” she replied. “What’s the next one?”

  After having his first suggestion rejected, so, George was a tad reluctant to continue.

  “Come on,” she urged. “Don’t take it personal – I haven’t.”

  It was true, if she had been of a different character, his wife might have taken an altogether more negative approach to the snoring situation and its ‘perceived’ problem. “Okay,” he said. “I see your point, here’s my next suggestion. We arrange the sheets and blankets in such a way they allow your feet to stick out beneath them, at the end of the bed.”

  Although Martha considered this another candidate for the bad category, for politeness’ sake, she said, “Tell me more.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Yes, please continue.”

  “Okay,” he said, his confidence growing. “We buy an ostrich feather – a big one – like the ones ladies in Victorian times stuck in their hats.”

  Although she was trying so hard to hear her husband out, Martha, raising an eyebrow, asked, “A feather?”

  “Yes, a big one mind you, the biggest we can possibly find.”

  “A feather?” she asked him again.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I will attach it to the end of the bed, where it will rest against your feet, tickling them just enough to stop you from sleeping too deep, so stopping your snoring.”

  “Bin it, “said Martha, laughing at so ridiculous a suggestion, “in the bad category. It’s ludicrous.”

  His confidence on the wane, George said, “Are you sure you want me to continue, because they’re all rather fanciful?”

  Feeling, knowing that she was being too hard on her doting husband, Martha said, “Sorry, please do continue. I promise not to laugh at you again. Who knows what fantastic ideas might be lurking somewhere within that wonderful brain of yours.”

  Happier, George continued. “My third idea is a bit boring, really,” he explained. “All that it consists of is leaving the window open, allowing plenty of fresh air into the room.”

  “That’s a great idea,” she said. “The fresher the air the easier it will be for me to breath.” Pouting uncertainly, she added, “Though it is a rather impractical during the winter months. It does get frightfully cold this far inland!”

  “The bad bin?” he asked.

  “Smiling, she said, “Bad bin for the winter, good bin for the summer.”

  Cheering up a bit more, George said, “Halfway there. Want to hear another?”

  She nodded again.

  George’s next suggestion was simplicity itself; they simply slept in different rooms. During the most difficult times, when her snoring was at its most unbearable, he offered to sleep in the spare room. Martha, however, refused to consider this an option. The suggestion that her husband did not want to sleep with her, even if it was only on a temporary basis, was unacceptable to her. There had to be another solution without the need for separate bedrooms. Casting yet another suggestion into the rejections bin, she said, “Next idea, please.”

  During the following minutes, George presented many more ideas that his ingenious mind had produced, such as tilting the bed at an angle, sleeping on the bare floorboards, all the way through to Martha wearing her bra back to front with tennis balls stuck inside it. However, none of these ideas impressed his dear wife. Finally, out of sheer desperation, George said, “I have only the one idea left, and I have deliberately held it back because it’s the most peculiar and bizarre of them all.”

  “I’m still here and I’m still listening, Martha answered him, “so let’s be hearing it…”

  Coughing, trying to clear away a tickle in his throat, George said, “My idea, my last idea is as follows…

  When George had come to the end of explaining his final suggestion to his wife, George stood back, watching to see what her reaction might be. At first, Martha showed no reaction, no emotion whatsoever to what he had said. However, as she digested the full details, a hint of a smile crept onto her beautiful face. “Hmm,” she said, “I see what you mean about it being the most peculiar and bizarre of them all.”

  “But you like it?”

  “I haven’t said that, yet.”

  “But you think it has a chance, you know, of working?”

  “I haven’t said that either.”

  “But?” he asked, trying his to tease out her feelings.

  “What I will say,” she said, “despite it being so weird, is that I am prepared to give it a go.”

  “Hurray!” George cheered, flabbergasted that she was actually going along with it.

  “But I must warn you,” she added, trying to curb her husband’s exuberance, “I must warn you that I am still uncertain as to whether or not I can go through with it.”

  “You will, you will!” he replied, more certain of his wife’s sentiments than her.

  Because it was so strange and complicated an idea, it took George a couple of days to gather all the necessary bits and pieces for the contraption, the device he had envisaged, to stop his beloved wife’s snoring. However, imagining something, especially something as odd and peculiar as this, and creating it are two entirely different things. George soon found this out.

  “Is it finished?” Martha asked, poking her head round the door of the garage, where her husband was busy at his workbench tucked away in the corner.

  “No, not yet,” he replied grumpily.

  George, being a stickler for detail, kept his head down, struggling to finish his problematic creation. He knew only too well how strange a contraption it was, so he had no intention of being on the receiving end of any unwanted comments no matter how honest they happened to be until it was finished.

  “A cup of tea?” Martha asked pointing to the kitchen, despite that fact that George was not even looking at her.

  “Yes, that would be nice,” he replied. “Thanks, I’ll be in for it in a couple minutes.”

  Twenty minutes later, George wandered into the kitchen, groaning and grumbling unhappily to himself.

  Ignoring his mood, Martha said, “Sit down, I’ll have your cuppa ready in a jiff.” She did, in little more than a minute his wife had placed a cup of steaming hot tea in front of him.

  “Thanks,” he said, “and sorry for being so grumpy.”

  She smiled.

  “Sometimes I don’t know how you put up with me,” he said, taking a sip of the wonderful imbibe.

  “I thought you might be in need of some sustenance,” she said, placing a plate of hot buttered crumpets next to his cup. Without saying a word, George set about eating the crumpets, with gusto.

  “And you’re no bother at all,” she said encouragingly. “I’d never part with you, not even for a younger model.”

  The tea and crumpets finished, George stood up from the table feeling refreshed, rested and relaxed in min
d, body and spirit. Setting off for the garage, he whistled Tiptoe Through the Tulips.

  Finally, the big day arrived. After struggling for seven long days, creating, crafting at his workbench, George was ready to unveil the thing, the apparatus upon which his hopes of getting a good night’s sleep rested.

  “Dear,” he said, tapping the kitchen windowpane, trying to catch his wife’s attention. She was washing the dishes.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s finished!”

  Abandoning the cups and saucers, Martha dashed out of the house. Giving him a hug and a kiss, she congratulated him on achieving it. “I was beginning to think it might never be finished,” she said jokingly.

  “And so was I.”

  “Linking his arm, she said, “Let’s go see it.”

  The happy couple made their way into the garage; Martha so proud of her wonderful, creative husband, and George, while proud of the fact that he had actually finished the contraption, looking forward to a restful night’s sleep from there on.

  Turning the corner, passing through the doorway, into the garage, Martha let out a shriek. “What’s that?” she gasped, horrified by what she saw in front of her.

  “You know very well what it is,” he said, hurt by his wife’s over the top reaction, on seeing it.

  “But...” she said, lost for anything more worthwhile to say.

  “It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “It, it’s just so – different!” she said, shocked at what he had made.

  “I did explain it to you. I even drew you a picture,” he said, “Don’t you remember?”

  “I know, and I do, but – this?” she asked, raising her hands, trying to emphasise just how