Squirrel

I woke up in Strasbourg this morning. I finally managed to fall asleep properly about half an hour after taking a melatonin tablet around 3 a.m. The hostel reception calmly assigned me a new room once I suggested the obvious solution. I was surprised they didn’t have any earplugs for sale when I showed up wearing a pajama top and the baggy jeans from the day before, which I’d thrown on just for appearances.

“There’s a guy snoring in the room, and I can’t sleep,” I managed to say, half-awake.

— Have you tried earphones? he asked.

— Yeah, that’s not working. You wouldn’t happen to have earplugs or something, would you? I replied, expecting this to be such a common issue that they’d definitely have some.

— No, unfortunately not. I don’t have anything for you.

There was an awkward pause. I couldn’t react. I was exhausted but now undeniably awake. I’d already spent a few hours battling the sound of my neighbor snoring above me. I had gone to bed early, hoping to catch the 7:15 a.m. train back to Paris and write at dawn on the train.

By 1 a.m., I found the energy to rummage through the front pocket of my black Eastpak, where I always keep my earphones. Of course, I hadn’t invested in noise-canceling AirPods, and at that moment, I thought it might be worth it. I shoved them in my ears anyway and started scrolling through Spotify to see what anti-snoring playlists were out there. To my relief, I discovered that some people had anticipated this problem. I came across a whole bunch of “anti-snoring” playlists—10-hour-long ones to help you survive the whole night. Some with rain sounds, others that mimicked an airplane cabin, something about 145 GHz, which I didn’t really understand. I thought I might’ve found a solution. I tried the rain sound—useless. Then I tried the airplane cabin—it was better, but the volume was way too loud. The earphones started bothering me since I sleep curled up, face pressed against the pillow. I decided to take them out. I didn’t realize my phone was still playing the airplane cabin decompression sound. What I did notice, though, was that my Lebanese roommate, who I had caught stark naked a few hours earlier, was breathing particularly loudly.

“Do you know who it is?” asked the receptionist.

— No, I haven’t really talked to them, I replied, coming back to my senses.

— Because we could try to avoid this for the next guests. Do you know when he arrived? he explained.

At this point, I was fully awake, and I surprised myself with the effort I put into trying to figure out who the snorer was.

— Not really, I was already in bed. But when I got there, I met a 17-year-old Lebanese guy, whose brother works at reception. Then a French guy arrived, but he didn’t leave his stuff—he said he’d be back. He just wanted to know where the bathrooms were. I told him they were in the room’s bathroom. Then he left, probably to meet some friends. Then the snorer went to bed while I was already lying down, eyes closed for at least an hour. I noticed him because he made some noise climbing into the top bunk. He was… pretty big.

To avoid saying “fat,” I corrected myself mentally—better to be careful with that.

The receptionist was glued to his screen.

— Yeah, I know who it is then.

— It’s a shame, I’m only staying tonight, I’m catching my train tomorrow morning. Is there another room available? I asked, in a kind, almost pleading voice. I was surprised by my own boldness and thought I had been pretty brave to ask.

— The thing is, I’ve already closed out the accounts for the night, but let me check.

After a moment, he gave me room 306A and kindly asked me to return the keys to 302C once I’d grabbed my stuff. I climbed the three floors separating us, hurriedly packed my two bags, throwing everything in randomly, and set off to check out the new room. To my surprise, it was empty. At the same time, I figured they wouldn’t have risked putting me in another room with potential snorers. I hadn’t expected this much, and I was thrilled to see that the room was much more spacious and even had the only balcony on the floor. A four-bed room, all to myself. Excited, I went back downstairs to reception.

— Thanks so much! I said, handing him the key to 302C.

— Have a good night!

I returned to my room. I couldn’t sleep. All that commotion had completely woken me up. I started thinking, I really need to stop being so frugal about everything. I’m making good money now, and quite a bit, too. As my paternal grandparents always said: “Cheap things end up costing more.”

I think about all this as I try to fall asleep. Saving money is something I inherited from my mom. About two years ago, I nicknamed her “Mama Squirrel.” And me? I’m Baby Squirrel.

Six hours earlier, I had her on the phone to explain my latest mishap:

“Guess who made the same mistake as Mama Squirrel!” I announced, with undisguised pride, knowing she’d see it as a virtue where others might see it as a flaw.

— What happened? she asked, worried.  

— Guess where I am.  

— I’ll check your stories.  

— No, it’s not on my stories. I’m in Strasbourg.  

— Why?  

— I did the same thing as you. I took a FlixBus to go from Mannheim to Strasbourg with a 25-minute connection, and the bus was over an hour late. I missed my train. Since there weren’t any other TGVs covered by my TGV Max Jeune pass, I have to spend the night in Strasbourg. Serves me right.

Mama Squirrel had gotten herself into far worse situations in the name of saving money, which usually ended up costing her more. When she came to visit me in Bremen, where I was doing my final internship at a communications agency, she booked a bus from Grenoble to Freiburg. Needless to say, she arrived way too late to catch the ICE (Germany’s high-speed train), and the only reasonable option left was to get the Deutschland Ticket (basically a better version of a rail pass), which meant taking no fewer than eight different trains, with seven transfers, to reach me, all while running on very little sleep.

“The worst part was that huge suitcase,” she said.

On top of all that, she had lugged along a moving suitcase full of my things that I’d asked her to bring.

Lying in the clean sheets of my second bed of the night, I reflect on how I need to handle things differently. Something like this can’t happen again. I can’t afford to waste energy on things like this. What was I thinking, not taking the direct Mannheim-Paris TGV that would’ve only taken three hours?

At that moment, I start visualizing all the things I want to change, and the direction I want to head, in the journal I keep. I tell myself, the more I write in it, the more I’ll review my goals, and the fewer mistakes I’ll repeat. This is how I manage to change things. I make lists—a bunch of them—to help make my visualizations more concrete. It’s the only way I’ve found to really pay attention to my good and bad habits. I use writing to imagine a different scenario. One where I make better decisions, for the better.

Then it hits me: I’m not going to fall asleep that easily. I’d left the window open to let in the fresh air, but I’d definitely forgotten something in my previous room. My black sleep mask, the one that protects me from the harsh streetlamp rays coming through the window faster than the air. Since I’d already returned the key to 302C, I gave up. I opened up ChatGPT to check how long it takes melatonin to kick in, and once I was satisfied with the answer, I shook the plastic box and let a tiny melatonin pill fall out. I took a sip of water and forced myself to appreciate the silence in the room as I tried to fall asleep.