Flaws and Virtues

I have many flaws.  One of them, unfortunately, is a very jacked-up sinus cavity.  I've seen x-rays of it, and it's not pretty.  My right side in particular is very malformed...I actually don't even have an upper cavity on that side.  I've had surgery once, in 2005 and while it helped with the constant sinus infections, it made my snoring even worse.  Jeff swears the doctor left something flapping up in there.

Consequently, I snore like a wounded water buffalo.  And that's being kind.  I've been played recordings of my snoring and it is impressive.  Once, I fell asleep on my front porch and a neighbor, going outside to smoke around midnight, walked down the street from 3 houses down because he was sure he heard someone using a power drill to break into the bolt locks on our house.  True story.

 

Fortunately, I have many off-setting virtues.  One of them is the ability to pick a patient and loving man to marry.  He's been living with my wounded buffalo/power drill snore for more than 24 years now...and still somehow wants to share a bed with me every night.  His only concession to the sounds that could probably bend metal?  To wear ear plugs.  He buys them in bulk:

 

(This box sits on our chest of drawers. It's the second such box he's had to buy. He gets them from Grainger online)

 

There is nothing our newest cat, Daisy, loves more than these ear plugs.  She fishes them out of the bathroom trashcan all of the time:

(Daisy with a purloined earplug.  Also, part of my thumb...another flaw of mine...I am totally retarded at picture-taking.)

(She has taken this one down to the kitchen)

 

We find them everywhere...in the bed with us, in the living room, under each and every piece of furniture...Jeff's even found them deposited in his shoe.

 

The other day at work, I went digging for something in my purse (mascara, I think) and saw this:

 

 

Apparently, I had left my purse open on the table the night before and Daisy had herself a little nocturnal game of ear-plug ball.  My purse was the goal.

 

There were SIX total earplugs in my purse...in varying stages of chewed-upon.  I don't know if she ran out of ear plugs that she had hidden around the house or if six was just the right number of earplugs she felt my purse needed.

 

Maybe six is the number of goals you need to win at ear-plug ball.