Chifff: The Princess and the Pea

It didn’t happen overnight, I always was that kind of person. As long as I can remember, I’ve been like that. Ever since I was a young, cute little lady, my parents used to mock me. They told me that I reminded them of the fairytale “The Princess and the Pea”.  Why? Because I could act pretty spoiled. And because I could act highly sensitive.

Not in a ‘boohoo, my rabbit didn’t eat the carrot I gave him, he must hate me’ sensitive kind a way. (Well, I did cry my eyes out when Bambi’s momma died, but keep that to yourselves…) No, I could be a real pain in the ass.  The shower wasn’t warm enough. The mattress wasn’t soft enough. My pizza wasn’t crispy enough. And so on. At night this highly sensitive feature even acted up. Especially when we were out on a holiday.

Back in the days, this spoiled little princess was often spotted camping (dear Love, don’t get your hopes up, at that age I just had to go with the flow, depending on what my parents decided, it was not, I repeat, not my preference!). What’s customary to camping? A camping site, tents, caravans, joint lavatories (yup, walking up & down the camping site with toilet paper stacked under your armpit, very classy indeed) and, of course, other lovely campers. Well, that just turned out to be the problem.

I was one of the lucky ones; my royal parents were fond of camping in a tent. Joy oh joy. At night, just when I wiggled myself in a comfy position in my way too warm, way too small and way too sweaty sleeping bag (off the record: now that I’m a little older and a lot wiser I know for a fact that there isn’t such a thing as a comfy position in a sleeping bag!), it started. Our giant, German camping neighbour decided it was a perfect night to snore his way into his sweet, German camping dreams. And when I say snore, I’m referring to incredible loud, impossible to ignore (and definitely impossible to sleep through) snoring.

Every single holiday there magically appeared a giant, snoring camping neighbour. Either German, French, Italian or Spanish; the snoring community had tracked me down and always knew to find the little, highly sensitive princess on the camping site. I’ve tried to battle them, several times. But for some reason, they didn’t take a little girl moaning, groaning, banging on her side of the tent or even throwing little rocks onto their tents, very serious.

But a few weeks I found out that the highly sensitive princess isn’t alone in this big, mean, snoring world. She has another highly sensitive princess sister! I went on a shopping spree to London (thx Digitalista E. for the tips) with my best friend E. and our hotel room turned out to have very thin walls (you could easily compare it to those of a tent). The very first night of our trip I heard a familiar noise coming out of the room next to us…

Oh my god, the snoring community just couldn’t stop harassing me! But before I could even make an annoyed sound/remark, my dear friend E. was talking on the phone to the night porter; “Excuse me sir, do you mind telling me what’s your policy against snoring people!? There’s a man in the room next to us, and he’s snoring like crazy. I’m about to think there’s a giant bear sleeping next to us! How am I supposed to get some sleep and more importantly; what are you gonna do about it?!”

After all these years I finally met my lost princess sister… Together we will fight the snoring community, don’t you worry!

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