Living with a roommate is a gamble. Living with a roommate in a tiny, enclosed space on a cruise ship is a high-stakes Vegas-level gamble. And for one sleep-deprived performer, she didn’t just get a bad roommate; she got a human foghorn who thought her own comfort was the only thing that mattered.
Our story comes from a woman who lives and works on a cruise ship. She’s a performer, which means she’s not just on vacation; she’s working grueling hours. She shares a room with bunk beds, and she’s on the top. Her roommate, who she chose (the betrayal!), conveniently “forgot” to mention one tiny detail during the roommate draft.
She snores. But let’s be clear: this isn’t a cute, little “whistle” snore. This is a “louder than earplugs” snore. This is a “louder than over-ear headphones playing music” snore. This is a “louder than the ship’s anchor” snore, and their room is near the anchor. This is a snore that could wake the dead.
And it’s not just loud; it’s scary. The narrator says her roommate “chokes in her sleep.” The first time it happened, she almost fell out of her top bunk trying to rush down, thinking her roommate was having a full-on medical emergency.
So, like any sane, reasonable adult, she tried to talk to her. She expressed concern for her health and, you know, her own desperate need for sleep. And what did the roommate say? She “shot her down.” Her reasoning? Since she was sleeping fine, it “wasn’t a big deal.”
The absolute, breathtaking audacity. “It’s not a big deal.” Meanwhile, our narrator is living in a state of perpetual exhaustion. And on a cruise ship, you can’t just change rooms. Snoring isn’t considered a “major” reason, even if it’s slowly k!lling your will to live.
The breaking point finally came. After a marathon work day—up at 9 AM, not done until 11 PM—she had to be up again at 6 AM. Thanks to the human freight train in the bottom bunk, she got exactly two hours of sleep. This was no longer an annoyance. This was a war.
So she formed a plan. A beautiful, petty, and frankly, genius plan. She recorded it. She recorded the beast.
The next day, she’s in the room for a break, and the roommate says she’s going to take a nap. Oh, is she? Our hero says “okay,” and as soon as the roommate lies down, she hits “play.” She unleashes the sound of her roommate’s own unholy snoring right back at her.
The roommate “immediately shot up” and looked at her “like I was insane.” The narrator, in a moment of pure, icy-cold power, “just stared at her.” When the roommate asked her to turn it off, our hero delivered the most perfect clapback in recorded history: “Well, this is you snoring and you said it’s not a big deal, so why should I?”
I am deceased. This is a work of art.
And she didn’t just do it once. For three days, every single time the roommate tried to rest, she was met with the sweet, sweet sound of her own sleep apnea. This is a level of savage commitment that I can only aspire to.
Eventually, they got called to the manager’s office. The roommate, of course, lied by omission, making it seem like the narrator was just playing loud noises for fun. But our hero came with the receipts. She explained the entire story, the choking, the refusal to find a solution, the “it’s not a big deal.”
And the manager, a person with a functioning brain, didn’t fully take the roommate’s side. He even told her she was being “difficult.” In the end, they got new roommates.
So, is the narrator the ahole? No. She is a queen. She is a problem-solver. She’s the hero who, when faced with an immovable object of pure entitlement, became an unstoppable force of petty, recorded justice.