“What’s bothering you , dear.” Honey’s question pierced the stillness of the early morning. The only other sound to be heard was the dog’s elbow thumping the floor while giving his ears their morning scratch.

“Oh, I’m just thinking about all the things that have to be done.” I explained sleepily. As an afterthought, I asked curiously, ” How did you know I was lying here awake?”

A pause followed and then he said, “Because you were so quiet.” Now what the heck does that mean? I could have been asleep and been quiet too, couldn’t I? Isn’t that the usual drill?

Flashback to one night about three years ago. As I lay peacefully in my pre-sleep frozen ferret position, he walked over to my side of the bed and bent down with his nose to my face. I waited for a goodnight kiss, but no smooch landed.

In the morning, I asked him what that was all about, and he replied,” I thought you were dead.” He continued cautiously. “You were sleeping quieter than usual so I came close to see if you were still breathing.”

Call me thick, but it was only at that moment that I realized my love god was just too gentlemanly to spell out s-n-o-r-e. I “sleep out loud”, as Mark Twain once put it. Questions raced through my mind. Was I a 10 on the snoring Richter scale? Did I exceed the safety limits for noise?

I knew better than to challenge his truthfulness because I feared he would tape me at my symphonic worst and end all hope that maybe he was just teasing me as spouses often do for their own amusement. Deep down though, I knew it was all true because I have even snorted myself awake, hearing just the tail end of a freight train leaving my pillow as I awaken.

I worry a lot about snoring. What if I fall asleep on an airplane and there is no honey there to nudge me? Will my seat mate say “Turn over, dear?” Will the flight attendant ask me to turn it down a notch or two because the other passengers can’t hear Mrs. Doubtfire Returns? Will everyone stare at me as I play my nasal trumpet in dreamland? Horrors! I must never fall asleep in a public place, I vow to myself.

This vow was very short lived. My friend and I recently fell asleep at the beach in the relaxing warm sun, snorting ourselves awake after a few minutes of sawing logs and drooling. I guess I’ll now have to sunsleep only on my non-snore-producing left side, even if it means over-roasting my right side in the Carolina sun. At my snoring worst, Honey says I could cause a tsunami, wiping out all beach life on the east coast.

When those ads appear on TV for all the pills, gizmos and gadgets that guarantee snoreless sleep, my love god turns his head ever so slightly towards me, with his eyebrows raised, uttering not a word. Silence saves marriages, he has learned in husband school.

My love god is lovingly tolerant of my nasal noise, putting a positive spin on this annoyance. “I just think of it as your mating call,” he explains.

This is proof to me that love is not only blind, but it is deaf too.