The remainder of Lori's day was typically nerve-wracking. She'd had to stomp across the hall in the middle of typing her English essay to get Luna to turn her amp down from 11 so she could focus. She'd needed to accompany her parents into the kitchen in the middle of dinner to break up a food fight at the kids' table, as Lola and Lana had weaponized their spoons into impromptu turkeyloaf catapults. And she practically had to pry the video game controller out of Lincoln's hands so she wouldn't miss the midseason finale of "The Dream Boat".
But in spite of her frazzled state of mind, Lori tried her best to keep her cool. Because at least now she had her new relaxation method to look forward to.
Lisa's wealth of knowledge about ASMR had led Lori to the surprisingly diverse online community centered around the phenomenon. Those who created content based around it called themselves ASMRtists, which sounded an awful lot like the sort of dumb pun Luan might've come up with on an off-day. But the truly impressive thing was how busy these people were.
Lori had been somewhat overwhelmed at first. There had to be over a hundred streaming video channels dedicated to this, with entire playlists devoted to different triggers - soft whispering, tapping noises, wrapping paper crinkling, you name it. Even something as seemingly innocuous as watching someone daintily move their hands around for 20 minutes was enough to set some people's scalps a-tingling, apparently.
Big deal, Lori thought with a chuckle. If I wanna watch someone wave their hands like a sideshow weirdo, I'd have Lucy tell my fortune again.
As the Loud family retired to bed that evening, Lori had everything planned out. Sifting through the hundreds of ASMR videos available, she'd found one that looked like it'd be right up her alley - a roleplay video in which the ASMRtist played the part of a nail salon employee, providing a full manicure to the viewer. It'd be the perfect fantasy to fall asleep to. Real life trips to the nail salon always soothed Lori's jangled nerves, so surely a virtual one would work just as well, right?
Finally, at 10:00, after her nightly good-night-I-love-you texts with Bobby (slightly extended when they fell into the "you sign off first"/"no, you sign off first" routine), Lori turned out her light and rolled over into bed. "Good night, Leni," she sighed.
Leni pulled up her own covers and lowered her sleeping mask. "Night, Lori!" she squeaked. "Hope you have a better day tomorrow. If you want, I'll tell that bully of yours to leave you alone."
Lori almost corrected her sister, then thought better of it. As Leni snuggled under her comforter, Lori pulled her own sheets up to her chin, then opened the Internet browser on her phone. Queuing up the nail salon video, she popped in her earbuds and laid back, getting ready to relax.
"Oh, hello, sweetie!" said the boy in the video, in a voice barely above a whisper. He stood in front of what was obviously a green screened backdrop of a real nail salon. "Such a pleasure to see you again! Will we be doing the usual?" He fluttered his fingers directly into the microphone. Lori shuddered a bit; it sounded like his hands were right next to her ears.
Okay, cool your jets there, buddy, she thought. Personal space, y'know?
She laid back and let herself sink into the mattress. The boy's voice was low and husky, and kind of hard to hear at times. "Let's start by giving your nails a quick buff, shall we?" he whispered.
Lori squinted through the darkness at the screen. The boy had a nail file in one hand, and kept tapping it gently with the other. "This one's your favorite, right? I know, I remember from the last time you were here. Y'know, you're one of my favorite customers, honey."
I've never watched your channel before, genius, Lori thought, rolling her eyes. Then she realized she wasn't focusing. The tingling sensation she'd felt on the couch had yet to reoccur. She closed her eyes and tried to zero in just on the sound of the boy's voice.
"This is a very delicate nail file," he hushed, still tapping right into the microphone. "Y'know, my grandma gave it to me." Tap tap tap. "She's such a nice old lady, you'd love to meet her, I bet." Tap tap tap. "Maybe one of these days you'll see her in here." Tap tap tap…
Lori's fists clenched involuntarily. "WILL YOU LITERALLY JUST SHUT UP AND BUFF MY STUPID NAILS ALREADY, YOU JERK?"
Her eyes snapped open as she slapped a hand over her mouth. Blushing deep crimson, she sat up and glanced at Leni's bed through the semidarkness.
Leni just mumbled a bit in her sleep. "Mmh, you heard the woman, Hazel, be a good zebra and buff her nails...zz…"
With a sigh, Lori stopped the video. "Dang it," she whispered. "Why isn't this working?" Soft talking was supposed to be an extremely common ASMR trigger, from what she'd gathered, and it worked fine for her on the couch that afternoon. What was missing?
It's 'cause of this stupid roleplay, she decided. It doesn't feel real! The people at the nail salon actually DO their jobs, and they never stick their fingers in my ears like freaks either.
Frustrated, Lori rolled over and glanced at Leni's bed again. Leni was still sound asleep, a blissfully ignorant smile on her face. Flashing back to the aimless story she'd told a few hours ago, Lori felt a hint of a tingle at the base of her neck.
Leni's voice, Lori thought. That perky cheerful bounciness. That's what I need!
But she wasn't about to wake Leni up just so she could talk her to sleep. That'd be stupid.
And then she remembered the podcast.
A couple of months ago, Lincoln had come up with the idea for the Loud kids to host an Internet podcast. They each took turns hosting their own unique episode - Lori herself had just done one not too long ago, with Bobby as a special guest via phone, gushing about their first romantic date together. And Leni had hosted an episode too, taking the listening audience on a virtual tour of the Royal Woods Mall.
With a quick swipe, Lori brought up her podcast app. There it was at the top of her bookmarks: "Listen Out Loud". And there was Leni's episode, fourth from the top. She pressed play.
"Hello?" Leni's voice met Lori's ears. "Hello? Hello?! Lincoln, how do you turn this thing on?"
Lori laid back on her pillow again, closing her eyes and folding her hands across her stomach. If this doesn't work, I am literally out of ideas.
"How do I look?"
"Leni, it's a podcast," said Lincoln's voice. "No one can see you."
"Then why did I spend $70 on a new outfit? ...Oh well, never mind."
Lori's muscles de-tensed instinctively at the familiar sound of her sister's voice. She could almost picture the scene on the back of her eyelids, Leni traipsing merrily through the mall with Lincoln and his recorder tailing behind. The excitement in Leni's voice was palpable as she narrated the scene. Lori kind of envied that sometimes, how Leni could get so passionate about the simple things in life.
Podcast Leni stepped into the nail salon. "I once saw Patchy Drizzle getting a mani-pedi in here," she said in a hushed tone, probably so as not to disturb the salon employees. "He's our local weatherman. And a huge celebrity. But real talk? His toenails were super flakey. Probably because he's always wearing mandals."
Lori would've been grossed out to the point of gagging - if she hadn't remembered to listen just to the sound of Leni's voice, not the subject matter. The way each letter sound played off each other, the enthusiastic bounce of each syllable, hovering up before stretching way down...Lori didn't understand the science behind it, nor did she particularly care, but everything about Leni's voice triggered something in the relaxation center of her brain. The top of her head began to tingle, and she felt every muscle go limp as she let the sensation spread down to her neck and shoulders. It was like the entire day's stresses just got washed away.
Podcast Leni went to the shoe store next, then the pet store, extolling the virtues of each business as she went. By the time they reached the department store at the end of the mall, Lori was out like a light.
Lori awoke the next morning to a face full of sunshine through the window. She stretched and smiled contentedly. That was the best night's sleep she'd had in weeks! No tossing, no turning, no lying awake for hours running through the next day's itinerary in her mind - just peaceful relaxing sleep.
She leapt off the mattress to her feet, ready to face whatever obstacles the day threw at her.
The first of which turned out to be her smartphone, swinging up and whacking her in the face by way of the earbuds that were still stuck in her ears.
Thereafter, it didn't take long for Lori's stress to start piling up again. There was the fact that she was still out of shampoo, which meant she had to settle for using Lola's bubblegum-scented glitter shampoo instead - she was still picking sparklies out of her hair during breakfast. This time, it was Lynn who almost held up the ride to school, tearing the laundry hamper apart looking for her lucky jockstrap, which she insisted she couldn't have after-school field hockey practice without. And on top of that, Lori discovered that her eight-page essay on what patriotism means to her would not be representing Royal Woods High School at the tri-city Memorial Day festival that year - but Carol Pingrey's, on the other hand, would be.
Lori was used to these kinds of setbacks by now. Despite her best efforts and her strongest desires, she knew she just couldn't maintain control over every single aspect of her life. She had her usual methods of coping - her deep breathing exercises, her one-minute meditations in front of the girls' room mirror, and of course her favorite low-cal bean chips, which now came in a flavor loaded with stress-reducing passionflower.
But she was forgoing all of that today. Why bother breathing funny to calm down when ASMR clearly did the job so much faster and more efficiently?
The ride home was the typical wall of noise. Between Luna using every available solid surface in Vanzilla as an instrument on which to practice her latest drum solo, and Luan trying to tell Leni her newest joke but laughing so hard that she couldn't even get the punchline out, Lori was struggling to keep her mind steady. And that was before they got to the elementary school - according to Lincoln, Lola and Lana had been arguing since lunch over which one of them would get the extra pudding cup that Mom accidentally put in one of their lunch bags that morning, and they were no closer to resolving it than they were three hours ago.
"Come on, Lola! You don't even like butterscotch!"
"Yuh-huh! I do so! Don't even pretend like you know me!"
"Yeah, well, if you eat this, you're gonna get fat! And then you won't fit in your stupid dresses anymore!"
"Oh yeah? Well, if YOU eat it, you're also gonna be eating my FIST! And then your TEETH won't fit in your stupid MOUTH anymore!"
"Bring it on, Little Miss Limp-Arms!"
The sounds of slaps and screeches mixed with the drone of Lucy reciting her latest poem, the beeps of Lincoln's handheld video game, and Lisa rattling off her usual list of every disaster that could befall them on the ride home. ("We could drive over a broken bottle and suffer a blowout, the transmission could drop out of the undercarriage, a carbon monoxide leak could slowly suffocate us all…")
Lori clenched the steering wheel so hard, it could've snapped. Her scalp itched from sweat. Her breathing grew shorter, more intense…
She knew what she had to do.
A sharp two-fingered whistle shot through the noise. "HEY! COOL IT BACK THERE!"
Everyone clammed up immediately. Lola and Lana froze in mid-fight, the coveted pudding trapped in both their clutches.
Lori brushed her frazzled bangs out of her eyes. "As I was saying...go ahead, Leni, tell me all about what happened to you today."
In the front passenger seat, Leni blinked and scratched her head. "Wait, what?" she asked.
"You know," Lori pushed, forcing a smile onto her face, "you were going to tell me all about the exciting thing that happened to you this morning. Don't you remember?"
Leni grinned. "Oh, right! The exciting thing! You mean at the vending machine outside the cafeteria?"
"Yeah, sure," Lori said. "I'm sure everyone will literally give you complete and total silence while you tell me, won't they, guys?"
No one in the back seats objected.
Leni twiddled her hair with one finger. "Okay, so get this," she began eagerly. "So, like, I was between second and third period, right? And I was, like, totally craving something with caffeine in it, because I thought I grabbed the instant coffee crystals out of the cabinet this morning but it turned out to be cupcake sprinkles, so I was crashing, like, super hard, y'know?"
As Lori drove, she let Leni's words wash over her. The tingles returned, loosening her posture and relaxing every muscle.
Okay, yes, she'd kind of deceived her sister to do it, but it was either this or risk crashing the van out of stress, right? Clearly, this was the better alternative. No one could argue with that.
I hope this doesn't count as distracted driving, she thought blissfully as the tingles cascaded down to her shoulders. There's no way this should be illegal.
That night, it was more of the same. As Leni snoozed in the dark, Lori queued up the same podcast episode as last night and plugged in her earbuds for another comforting evening of tingly, stress-free sleep.
"Here's the music store!" said Podcast Leni. "Perfect for Luna's presents! This is the princess store, great for Lola presents…"
Lori could feel herself drifting off already. It was so nice to not have anything to worry about, to have all that stress just slough off like dirt after a hot shower. She couldn't remember the last time she felt this comfortable with herself.
And as long as she had Leni's perky little voice in her ear as a perfect ASMR trigger, nothing could possibly ruin her nightly de-stressing ritual.
...Right?