I cancelled Calm. It was about seventy dollars a year. That is roughly six dollars a month for a man to whisper at me about the ocean and then ask me for money again. I have the ocean. I am a shark. I do not need a recording of it.
The problem is I still lie awake. So now I have seventy dollars of budget and a list of things that might help. Donna says a list is not a sleep aid. I say the list is the only thing keeping me from buying all of it at once.
Here is my case.
about twelve thousand dollars. Shark rating 0.4.
The tank is a closed box of salt water with no light and no sound. I would go inside and float. This is very close to my natural habitat, except with a lid on it. The main issue is the lid. The other issue is that a shark in a saltwater tank at midnight might be the most at-home he has ever been, and then I would never come out, and Donna would have to explain to the neighbors. I am listing it first because I want to be honest about how the night starts.
about four hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.6.
Some people say hitting things is bad for sleep hygiene. Those people have never finished a set at two in the morning. I would play quietly, with brushes. Brushes on a snare is barely a sound. It is a whisper. It is like the app, but I am the one making the ocean noise.
about one hundred and twenty dollars. Shark rating 0.7.
I read nothing about this. I have not researched it. I have seen one and I want one. The sound is low and round and it goes on for a long time, and I think if I could make that sound at night with my own mouth I would fall asleep out of exhaustion from circular breathing. This is a real category of sleep aid. Please do not check it.
about eight hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.8.
Hear me out. White noise is the whole point. This machine makes the loudest, most consistent noise a person can buy for under a thousand dollars. The plan is to put it in the garage and crack the door. It will rumble through the house at a frequency that makes the walls feel like they are breathing. The neighbors will not sleep either, but they do not have my budget. Donna asked why it cannot go in the bedroom. I said the hose would have to come through the window and she said no.
Marine-grade speakers and subwoofer
about six hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.9.
If the drum kit does not work, I need something to play the noise through. These are waterproof, so I can leave them out back and let the bass travel through the ground and into the foundation. It does not need to be music. It could be a low drone. It could be the sound of a boat engine at a dock. I would be asleep by the second minute. Donna asked where I would sit while this happened and I said the point is that I am not sitting.
about two hundred and fifty dollars. Shark rating 0.9.
A mature tree in the yard. It makes a little shade and a little noise when the wind moves it. I thought if I could lie outside under a tree with the shore and the leaves I would not need the app. The problem is the avocado is basically a rock with a peel around it and I do not know how a tree fixes the insomnia. Donna said it fixes the yard. I said the yard is part of the bedroom, if you think about it.
about three thousand dollars. Shark rating 1.0.
This is the kind of thing that would put me out. Rollers. Heat. A little voice telling me to relax that is not an app. The voice is the chair. The chair is furniture. I cannot think of a single flaw except the price and the size and that Donna said if I bring a massage chair into the living room she will leave with it. So the plan is the basement.
Weighted sleep mask with cooling gel
about thirty-five dollars. Shark rating 1.1.
There is pressure on my face and cold on my eyes at the same time. I have never been more curious about a product. Sleep is about being comfortable and this sounds uncomfortable, which suggests it might reset the whole system. I would put it on at nine and find out.
Tactical flashlight, very bright
about ninety dollars. Shark rating 1.2.
I do not have a good reason for this one. It is a flashlight. I already have a flashlight. This one turns night into day and makes a sound I can only describe as a click. I saw a man on a bridge with one once and he looked very calm. I want to be that calm.
about fifteen dollars. Shark rating 1.3.
I know how this reads. I am tired during the day and I want a boost to get through the afternoon. The plan is to drink two in the morning of my sleep experiment and see if the extra alertness wears off in time to make the night feel like a crash landing. Donna said that is not science and I said neither is the app and she paid for that for four years.
about one hundred and forty dollars. Shark rating 1.4.
For when I give up on the bed. Sometimes the problem is not sleep, it is lying in the same rectangle where I have been awake for weeks. A giant beanbag on the floor by the window changes the geometry. Also it will double as a chair for the drum kit, so the cost is basically spread across two things.
White noise machine with ocean and rain
about forty dollars. Shark rating 1.5.
Wait. This is what the app was. I know. But this one is in the room and it does not need a phone and it does not have a subscription and it does not try to upsell me a breathing exercise for a second screen. It just makes the sound. The sound is the whole product. It does one thing. I respect it.
about two hundred and thirty dollars. Shark rating 1.6.
Staring at the sky until I fall asleep is a method. It is an old method. People did it for thousands of years before the app. I do not know what any of the stars are called, which is why I need the chart. I also cannot point a telescope up and lie down at the same time without a mount, which is why I need a second thing.
about one hundred and twenty dollars. Shark rating 1.7.
The mount. I said the mount. The telescope is useless without the mount, so it is one purchase split into two listings. This makes the telescope cheaper in my mind. Donna says that is accounting and I say accounting is how we got here.
about two hundred dollars. Shark rating 1.8.
I have been sleeping on the same sheets since before I met Donna. They are fine. Linen is supposed to breathe. I breathe. The problem is the temperature and the texture and the whole ecosystem of the bed. New sheets are a fresh start. Donna asked what is wrong with the current sheets and I said they are the ones I am not sleeping on, which is true.
about sixty dollars. Shark rating 1.9.
A pillow that shifts and holds the shape of my head. Not a pillow that gives up. Buckwheat is a grain. I do not understand how a grain is a pillow but I want six of them so I can build a wedge. The wedge is the part that helps.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 2.0.
If the noise machine is the plan, I still need to block out the actual noise, like the neighbors and the compressor. These are formulated for people who work with machinery. I work with the machinery of my own mind, and also the compressor. The blocking is the whole idea.
about seventy dollars. Shark rating 2.2.
Same logic as the earplugs, but for light. If I control the noise and the light, I have eliminated two of the three things keeping me awake. The third is a personal problem. The curtains are an infrastructure purchase. Donna asked if a shark who lives in a house with windows can just not fix the windows. I said this fixes the windows.
Fancy alarm clock with sunrise setting
about one hundred and twenty dollars. Shark rating 2.3.
The problem is not only falling asleep. It is the panic of the morning alarm and the way it makes the night feel like a countdown. A clock that wakes me up with light would take the sound out of the morning. Then the morning is gentle and the night is calm and I sleep. It is a system. This product treats the symptom at the other end of the night, which is technically the same night.
about forty-five dollars. Shark rating 2.4.
Smaller than the mask. Just a small weight over the eyes. It is not a full blanket so it does not count as the big purchase, which means I can get it now and the actual blanket later. This is the appetizer blanket. Donna saw the box and said you bought a tiny blanket for your face. I said it is a sleep tool. She said it is a tiny blanket for your face. Both things are true.
about sixty dollars. Shark rating 2.5.
The sound of running water all night. This is the most on-brand thing on the list. It would make the bedroom feel like a stream. It would also make me need to use the bathroom more, which is a risk I am willing to price in. The trade is water sound for the app’s water sound. I am simply replacing one water sound with a better water sound that does not have a paywall.
Herbal tea, sleep blend, forty bags
about twenty-five dollars. Shark rating 2.6.
A cup of warm tea before bed. It is a ritual. The app wanted to be a ritual and it was a phone. This is an actual cup. I can hold it. I can drink it. I cannot scroll on it. Donna asked what is in the tea and I said it does not matter, the cup is the point. She said the tea is literally the point and I said I am choosing to hold the cup for the feeling.
about eighty dollars. Shark rating 2.7.
I do not have a robe. I have been coming out of the water and getting into bed as if the bed is a dock. A robe would signal to my body that the day is over and the night is a separate segment. It is a uniform for sleeping. Uniforms make people behave certain ways. This is established. Donna said this is a robe and I said it is a uniform for sleeping, and I said it twice because the first time was too quiet.
about forty-five dollars. Shark rating 2.8.
It is a big rock of salt with a light inside. It is dim and warm and it provides a low point in the room to look at instead of my phone. It is also a rock, and I am a shark, and I do not know if salt lamps are supposed to be near water. This is the kind of product where I do not ask those questions until after the return window.
about nine hundred dollars. Shark rating 2.9.
The bed is old. The bed is where I am not sleeping. At some point you have to ask whether the surface is the problem. Nine hundred dollars is a lot, but it is a surface that spends every night with me. I would like the surface to be better. I would also like the surface to be delivered and assembled and taken away, because I am not carrying a mattress up the stairs. Donna said the old one stays until the new one arrives. I said that is the plan, it is a two-mattress house now.
about one hundred and eighty dollars. Shark rating 3.0.
This is the test version of the mattress. If I put a topper on the old mattress and sleep well, I save nine hundred dollars. If I sleep badly, I know the mattress is not the problem and I return the topper. The topper is economic. It is a hedge. I am hedging against a nine hundred dollar mattress with one hundred and eighty dollars of foam. This is the kind of reasoning that used to make me a lot of money in the app cancellations.
about fifty dollars. Shark rating 3.2.
The air is dry and dry air makes a person wake up. I do not make the rules. Adding moisture to the room is a small, correct thing. I can fill it at night and it hums and the air gets soft. It is a boring purchase and boring is what the night wants.
about one hundred and thirty dollars. Shark rating 3.3.
Same logic. The filters take the dust out and the machine makes a hum on low. Between the purifier and the humidifier the room is doing something for me all night instead of waiting for me to fall asleep in it. This is a room that is not just empty space. This is a machine that works the night shift.
about one hundred and ten dollars. Shark rating 3.4.
Not a device. A course. Someone teaches me how to sleep. I would sit up and follow the instructions and then sleep. I do see the problem: I am replacing an app with a bigger app. But this one is a course, and courses have an end, and I like endings. The app never ended. The app just kept asking for the next month.
about two hundred and fifty dollars. Shark rating 3.5.
I need data. If I do not know when I slept, how do I know if any of this worked? The ring tells me. It tracks my time in bed and tells me it was not sleep. That is the price of knowledge. Donna asked what I will do with the knowledge and I said I will feel better about being awake, because now I will know it is official.
about thirty dollars. Shark rating 3.6.
It goes outside the bedroom window and does what the app did, but it is honest work. It is metal in the wind. It does not have a subscription. It cannot be discontinued. It cannot raise its price. I would listen to it and it would train my brain to associate that sound with the end of the day. The neighbors can also hear it, which is a public service, or a public nuisance, depending on their view on chimes at night.
Weighted blanket, fifteen pounds
about seventy dollars. Shark rating 3.8.
This is the one from the headline of this whole problem. The cancelled app cost about seventy dollars a year, so the blanket costs about one year of the app. It is heavy on purpose. It presses down and the pressure is supposed to trick the body into settling. I do not need the trick from a voice in my phone. I need it from a blanket. This is the most direct replacement on the list. I cancelled a calm thing and I am buying a heavy thing. The heavy thing is better because I can fold it.
Weighted blanket, twenty pounds
about ninety dollars. Shark rating 3.9.
This is the heavier version. Same logic, more pressure. I am a shark. I weigh a lot. A fifteen pound blanket is a suggestion. A twenty pound blanket is a conversation. Donna asked if I will be able to get out of the bed in the morning and I said that is a morning problem, and the morning is very far from now. I said it at 1 a.m. She did not laugh. I think she was asleep. That is what I am trying to do, so actually it was a success.
about thirty-five dollars. Shark rating 4.0.
The surface under the face. Silk is smooth and cool and does not hold the heat. If the pillowcase is right and the sheets are right and the blanket is heavy and the room is moist and the light is off, then the bed is set up correctly. Then the only variable left is me. That is a good place to end up. I would rather blame a wrong pillowcase than my own habits. So I am buying the right pillowcase.
about twelve dollars. Shark rating 4.5.
Cold feet. It is a real thing. The body gets cold at night and it wakes you up. Socks fix it. I have never tried this because I thought socks in bed were a sign of a man who has given up, and now I would like to give up in a soft, warm way. This is the cheapest thing on the list and I have placed it near the end so you can see that I am capable of restraint.
about eight dollars. Shark rating 4.7.
If I wake up with a thought, I write it down and it leaves my head. This is the whole method. The thought goes on paper, the paper stays on the table, and the bed is for sleeping. It is cheaper than the app and it does not tell me to breathe. I can already breathe. I have been doing it on land for years.
about twelve dollars. Shark rating 4.8.
The dark over the eyes. The simplest version. No cooling gel, no weights, no app. The room gets dark and the eyes get dark and the brain follows. I could have started here. I am aware I could have started here. I am choosing to end here, which is a kind of starting, if you look at it from the right time of night.
about ten dollars. Shark rating 4.9.
The last one. The cheapest thing. The thing that shuts out the world so I can sleep. I do not need the industrial ones. I need these. I cancelled an app that told me to breathe for about seventy dollars a year and I am going to spend ten of it on foam and the rest of it on everything above. Donna looked at the list and said you have spent the whole seventy dollars many times over. I said that is the point of a budget. It is a starting point. She said goodnight. I said goodnight and I put in the earplugs and I still lay awake, but this time I was lying awake under a much heavier blanket. That has to count for something.