By now, you have undoubtedly realized that I have a somewhat heightened preoccupation with fairies.
I tend to think that when it comes to humans, fairies are, by nature, one of two ways: mischievous or indifferent. I used to think there were helpful ones too, like in The Shoemaker and the Elves, but I am starting to think that was just a pretty old story. I mean, no matter how many times I fall asleep without doing my laundry, I never wake up to an empty laundry basket.
The ice fairies that visited me are an example of indifferent fairies -- they didn't frost my window for my pleasure, but rather for nature's pleasure and their own. The fairies that leave the mushroom dancing rings behind are also indifferent fairies. I suppose you could call them good, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if we meddled with them, they wouldn't be so indifferent or so nice anymore.
And then you have the fairies like the Tunnel Vision Fairies, or the hobgoblin I call The Signal Thief opening my apartment complex gates from the signal box, causing trouble for the mortals they are forced to share the world with. Those are the mischievous fairies. Any kind of fairy has the potential to be a mischievous fairy, but pixies are by far the worst of this category.
I happen to have a pixie living with me right now.
This pixie has taken lessons from the Tunnel Vision Fairies. He knows how to create an attention vortex. But rather than drawing my eyes to a subject of his choice, this pixie (whom I call "Ticker") draws my ears.
Ticker earned his name with the first noise he chose to amplify: the ticking of a clock. I had just settled down to go to sleep, early for once! But I kept tossing and turning. I had several times been on the verge of falling asleep, only to be awakened by the ticking of my clock, across the room.
It seemed ridiculous that my clock should be so loud, tonight of all nights. It had never kept me awake before. And now that I was finally getting in some well-earned and much-needed extra sleep time, my clock decided it was time to get noisy?
Well, now I was annoyed on top of sleepy. But I stayed in bed, as the lazy person I am, hoping that I would be able to get past the noise and the annoyance and still get in some good snoozing.
In the end, I removed the batteries from the clock for the rest of the night.
It was then that I knew: I had a pixie to deal with. That pixie's name was Ticker. And Ticker was a worthy opponent.
He stuck to ticking clocks for quite some time, perfecting his medium, I suppose. But since then, he has branched out. He has amplified such noises as running water, music from next door, and rattling in my air conditioning unit. Lately, he's even taken to hanging out with the Signal Thief down at the gates, where he amplifies a sound that was already impossibly loud: a buzzing sound brought on by some kind of malfunction in the mechanisms...
I am beginning to suspect that Ticker takes particular pleasure from messing with me. I say this because I am pretty sure he has followed me into my car a few times, zooming my ears in on the vibrations of aluminum cans, shuffling papers in the backseat, and the squeak of windshield wipers against glass that's too dry.
And it's possible he's followed me to work a few times, too, increasing my awareness of a significant majority of the annoyances that take place on an Exasperation Day. Ngh, ngh, ngh.
I have spent the day thinking of ways to thwart Ticker's attempts to annoy me. His success in frustrating me has undoubtedly made him cocky. That arrogance, combined with my newly conceived plans to ignore him, might just give me the leg up on him for once.
I considered cotton balls in my ears, but then I remembered the consistency of cotton balls and decided against that. Then I thought maybe ear plugs would be a better solution, but I realized that Ticker could probably use the sounds of my own heartbeat or my lashes against the pillow to annoy me, if he was really dead set on being obnoxious (and as a pixie, he usually is).
So I gave up on ideas that would block him out, and began thinking of things that would drown him out.
My plan of action is as follows: When I exercise tonight, I will wear earbuds and listen to loud music. When I get home, I will watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail (a movie pixies notoriously despise). After I am done laughing uproariously, I will go to bed, where the dull roar of sleepiness and the imagined sounds of dreaming will be my protection.
I'm like the Princess and the Pea, except with noises instead of bruises. Does that mean that if I succeed, I get a prince?
Well, a prince would be nice and all, but I'd settle for a full night of uninterrupted sleep.
I tend to think that when it comes to humans, fairies are, by nature, one of two ways: mischievous or indifferent. I used to think there were helpful ones too, like in The Shoemaker and the Elves, but I am starting to think that was just a pretty old story. I mean, no matter how many times I fall asleep without doing my laundry, I never wake up to an empty laundry basket.
The ice fairies that visited me are an example of indifferent fairies -- they didn't frost my window for my pleasure, but rather for nature's pleasure and their own. The fairies that leave the mushroom dancing rings behind are also indifferent fairies. I suppose you could call them good, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if we meddled with them, they wouldn't be so indifferent or so nice anymore.
And then you have the fairies like the Tunnel Vision Fairies, or the hobgoblin I call The Signal Thief opening my apartment complex gates from the signal box, causing trouble for the mortals they are forced to share the world with. Those are the mischievous fairies. Any kind of fairy has the potential to be a mischievous fairy, but pixies are by far the worst of this category.
I happen to have a pixie living with me right now.
This pixie has taken lessons from the Tunnel Vision Fairies. He knows how to create an attention vortex. But rather than drawing my eyes to a subject of his choice, this pixie (whom I call "Ticker") draws my ears.
Ticker earned his name with the first noise he chose to amplify: the ticking of a clock. I had just settled down to go to sleep, early for once! But I kept tossing and turning. I had several times been on the verge of falling asleep, only to be awakened by the ticking of my clock, across the room.
It seemed ridiculous that my clock should be so loud, tonight of all nights. It had never kept me awake before. And now that I was finally getting in some well-earned and much-needed extra sleep time, my clock decided it was time to get noisy?
Well, now I was annoyed on top of sleepy. But I stayed in bed, as the lazy person I am, hoping that I would be able to get past the noise and the annoyance and still get in some good snoozing.
In the end, I removed the batteries from the clock for the rest of the night.
It was then that I knew: I had a pixie to deal with. That pixie's name was Ticker. And Ticker was a worthy opponent.
He stuck to ticking clocks for quite some time, perfecting his medium, I suppose. But since then, he has branched out. He has amplified such noises as running water, music from next door, and rattling in my air conditioning unit. Lately, he's even taken to hanging out with the Signal Thief down at the gates, where he amplifies a sound that was already impossibly loud: a buzzing sound brought on by some kind of malfunction in the mechanisms...
I am beginning to suspect that Ticker takes particular pleasure from messing with me. I say this because I am pretty sure he has followed me into my car a few times, zooming my ears in on the vibrations of aluminum cans, shuffling papers in the backseat, and the squeak of windshield wipers against glass that's too dry.
And it's possible he's followed me to work a few times, too, increasing my awareness of a significant majority of the annoyances that take place on an Exasperation Day. Ngh, ngh, ngh.
I have spent the day thinking of ways to thwart Ticker's attempts to annoy me. His success in frustrating me has undoubtedly made him cocky. That arrogance, combined with my newly conceived plans to ignore him, might just give me the leg up on him for once.
I considered cotton balls in my ears, but then I remembered the consistency of cotton balls and decided against that. Then I thought maybe ear plugs would be a better solution, but I realized that Ticker could probably use the sounds of my own heartbeat or my lashes against the pillow to annoy me, if he was really dead set on being obnoxious (and as a pixie, he usually is).
So I gave up on ideas that would block him out, and began thinking of things that would drown him out.
My plan of action is as follows: When I exercise tonight, I will wear earbuds and listen to loud music. When I get home, I will watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail (a movie pixies notoriously despise). After I am done laughing uproariously, I will go to bed, where the dull roar of sleepiness and the imagined sounds of dreaming will be my protection.
I'm like the Princess and the Pea, except with noises instead of bruises. Does that mean that if I succeed, I get a prince?
Well, a prince would be nice and all, but I'd settle for a full night of uninterrupted sleep.
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