if silence is golden, i'm feeling pretty wealthy right now

Oh HOORAY
Lovergirl has, as a special present for me, purchased TV headphones for herself.
We live in a small house. We have one loungeroom and all the bedrooms are filled with babies.
We have three hours off in each 24 hour period, between 7pm and 10pm.
Lovergirl likes the telly on. Her brain is going all day and she needs to switch off.
I like the telly off. I desperately neeeeed the telly off. My brain is completely switched off all day. Only the smallest corner remains functioning - a kind of blinking red sensor light that runs a commentary that goes something like, "Is he hungry? When did I last change her nappy? Is he breathing? What is the next line to 'There was an old woman who swallowed a fly?'"

I once read a sci fi short story about a society where egalitarianism was taken to the extreme. I think it was some right wing writer's dig at communism. Everyone was strapped with weights so they all weighed the same, and intelligent people had painful buzzers attached to their heads that would go off at random intervals, causing them to lose their train of thought, so no-one was any smarter than anyone else. I feel a bit like that with the babies. I never quite finish a train of thought.

Now though, it's blissfully quiet.

Only - the dog is snoring.