Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

Judging by the rash of ads for devices and procedures to alleviate sleep apnea, it must be a common malady - particularly amongst men. Now I'm not one to minimize the angst that such an affliction causes, but the hucksters seem to be suggesting that sleep apnea is the reason for men needing frequent naps (the ads always features a hirsute guy with a pained look on his face). Hah, balderdash I say! I'll be the first to admit that it's the married man that does the lion's share of the napping (no one has ever branded a single man or a woman of any status as a napper), but it's sheer exhaustion, my friends, not apnea that's driving the guys to the couch. And here is why:

Married men should not be left alone in the house for any length of time. In short order the guy will be looking for something that he knows he put away, but now, after an hour of searching, is nowhere to be found. He's frustrated; exhausted as I was the other day until my better half came home.

"Honey, do you know where that rejection notice I got from Reader's Digest is? It's not in the file."

"Look again, dear. It must be in one of your other files."

"I checked twice for more than an hour already, darling, and it's not there, and I wanted to write that editor to point out where he went wrong. I'm absolutely exhausted from all this. I can't take the pressure."

"Okay, honey. I'll look through files and see what I can find. Well, would you believe this," she said not three seconds into the task. "You stapled it to the back of that nice thank-you letter Ronald Reagan sent you for your contribution to his second campaign."

Then there's the refrigerator, which seems to have a mind all of its own. The other day I put away a jar of sauerkraut right where I can see it. But a few days later the jar migrated to the very bottom shelf where I finally found it lurking behind a five-pound bag of sugar and had to bend all the way over; I mean really, really low to retrieve it. I was out of breath from all the bending, but luckily, I managed to maintain my balance, and made it back to the couch to recuperate.

As for the cabinets beneath the sink …fuhgeddaboutit ! Toilet paper, I tell you, is absolutely impossible. A man suffering from gastronomic distress has to either wait for his wife to come home or call 911. Sleep apnea it's not.