Living with Lyle

Problem Number one:

Sleep talking

            We were not a week into classes when my fist issue with Lyle arose.  He sleeps talks. But not like gentle murmurs that can slip out of anyone’s mouth from time to time. Lyle sleep speaks. It’s clear as day. He’s typically a pretty quiet kid, but at night he speaks with much more inflection than he would during the day. I was once jostled awake to, “WELL HOW MUCH ARE THEY, because I don’t want to pay for all of them.”  

 Also, he seems to almost always be speaking to someone. He is not speaking for both parties like Gollem, but every night I hear Lyle’s half of a conversation. I distinctly remember waking up one of the first nights and thinking “who makes a phone call at 3:30 in the morning?”

            My other roommate is a large “international student” from Africa, who we’re going to call Nate. Nate occasionally struggles with sleep, and has now made a habit of filling in the other half of Lyle’s conversations. So from my perspective I hear something along the lines of-

Lyle: “WHERE IS SHE?”

Giant African Nate (from the other side of the room): “she is in D-hall bro.”

Lyle: “Well I don’t like her, who said I like her?”

Nate: “I think it was tom”

Lyle: “I’m gunna go tell her”

Nate: “Ok you do that.”

Being a third party, I must attempt to sleep through this.

            Lyle is also a frequent “napper” so his sleep talking isn’t necessarily confined to the night. And on certain occasions he will react to something happening in the room, but later he will have no recollection of doing so. One afternoon Nate and I were chuckling at an Internet meme, when Lyle rolled over and mumbled, “you guys are like two French fries.” Nate and I then looked at each other (not knowing what to make of this statement). “What?” I responded a few seconds later. Without skipping a beat Lyle blurted out (in a pretty commanding voice considering the depth of his sleep) “YOU GUYS ARE LIKE A COUPLE OF BEST FRIEND FRENCH FRIES.” He then rolled over and didn’t say another word.

            Only recently did this problem come to a head when I was awoken to a melody. Through the foggy vision of having just been asleep, I see Nate’s head lift in unison with mine. I could only see his silhouette but I can imagine he had the same confused expression I did. It took us a second but we simultaneously came to the realization that “oh my god, its 4:30 in the morning and Lyle is actually singing right now.”