At 11pm on Saturday night, the dog ate my earplugs. Not any old earplugs (those ten-for-a-quid foamy ones that you have to twist into an impossibly tight roll to be able to get into your ear canal or the waxy numbers that you melt and shape with your fingers): no, these were my Alpine Sleepsoft thermoshaping earplugs designed for side-sleepers. And not cheap – a tenner a pop!
I actually find it quite difficult to sleep without my earplugs. They’re a sort of comfort blanket fo my hearing. Most of the time I don’t even put them in, I just like to know that they’re there. I’m a very intolerant sleeper – the most minute noise in the bedroom sends me into a frenzy because I worry that it won’t just be a one-off. Is that an errant snort or the start of a snoring session" Did the dog in the distance send out a singular  howl to wish its fellow neighbourhood dogs a good night or was it the beginnings of an hour-long barking opera, involving all aforementioned neighbourhood dogs" I digress. The dog ate my earplugs at 11pm and I ordered a new pair on my Amazon app at 11.30pm. It takes me approximately seventeen seconds to order something on Amazon because I have that one-click thing turned on, so by 11.30pm-and-a-half, I had an email in my inbox confirming my order.
Do you know what time my earplugs arrived" At 9.30am THE FOLLOWING MORNING! Before I’d even had a shower, brushed my teeth, picked up the papers or let ...