The old woman with the old house on University. (Part three.)

The room ended up being perfect for my needs at the time. I had a private side entrance, a bed, a dresser and a separate bathroom of my own. Mrs. G. provided me with towels and bed linens, and vacuumed the room and cleaned the bathroom while I was at work. For a guy starting out in his career, with no money, and about to get married, it was pretty sweet.

However, a few things happened that I attribute either to God punishing me for taking the room, or to God laughing at me for taking the room.

As I've mentioned, Mrs. G. was very hard of hearing. You often had to repeat yourself a few times, or practically shout, in order to make yourself understood. When she finally made out what I was saying, she would always smile up at me with her eyes all scrunched shut behind her glasses and say, "OK hon. I hear you."

My first night there was uneventful. It was a Saturday, and I was pretty exhausted from my trip and from the stress of moving to another state and another town, so when I went to sleep I was dead to the world. Sunday night, the night before I was to start my new job, was a different story.

I had had a hard time getting to sleep that night, nervous and excited to be starting my first "real" job. I finally drifted off around 1:00 in the morning, and was likely snoring loudly when I was jarred awake by incredibly loud hard-core country music coming from Mrs. G.'s clock radio.

Normally, I like Jimmy Rogers. I really do! But at 3:30 in the morning, cranked up so incredibly loud as to wake me up from a loud sleep, I sat up in bed suddenly and wondered what the heck was going on. When I realized it was her clock radio, I got up and walked over to the wall we shared, and heard Jimmy Rogers even more clearly. "T FOR TEXAS!! T FOR TENNESSEE--EEEEEEE! T FOR TEXAS!! T FOR TENNESSEE-EEEEEEE! T FOR THELMA. THAT GAL MADE A BIG FOOL OUT OF ME-EEEEEE!"

I climbed back in bed and pulled the covers over my head. It didn't help. The music didn't stop. It just didn't stop! It kept going and going and going. Finally, after about an hour, the country serenade was over. I thanked God for the sudden silence and was about to drift off to sleep again, when it started all over again.

I wrapped my pillow around my head in a pointless effort to deaden the sound. I thrashed around in the bed, turning this way and that way, trying to get back to sleep. It was just no use. So I got out of bed and did what the music said to do.

"I'M WALKING THE FLOOR OVER YOU. I CAN'T SLEEP A WINK THAT IS TRUE! I'M HOPING AND I'M PRAYING AS MY HEART BREAKS RIGHT IN TWO. I'M WALKING THE FLOOR OVER YOU!"

Finally, around 6:00 in the morning, the concert finally came to an end. I lay in bed and stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling, realizing that I had to be at work in just two hours. I thought about going back to sleep, but I didn't dare it. It couldn't be this bad every night, could it? Could it?

Sigh.

Welcome to Texas.