by Richard Ellis

Created on: December 01, 2009

I don't do mornings.

"If God had wanted me to see a sunrise, He would have made it in the afternoon!" That statement is not original with me, but it reflects my sentiments exactly. I am not a natural born morning person, yet most of my life I have been forced by one authority or another to rise before the sun has reached its zenith in the sky. Parents, bosses, military, wife and kids, more bosses; it all seemed to be a cruel and inhumane conspiracy to keep me from sleeping in.

It all started with my parents rousting me out of bed for school weekdays and for chores on weekends; I believe they sort of looked on it as pay-back for the sleepless mornings I caused them as a baby. As if I knew what I was doing then. I mean, I only threw the bottle at them when it was empty and I was hungry. However, as I grew, I quite naturally out-grew any desire to arise before noon, and even then only grudgingly.

Of course, the military is the worst. It seems to be their idea that if you don't get up well before sunrise, the day is lost. I say there should be an International Treaty banning military operations beginning before one o'clock in the afternoon. Then, if they insist on carrying on in the dark, they can go until midnight; it just seems uncivilized to get a body up so early just so they can begin the confusion in the dark.

Now, when I had a day job, I didn't have any choice but to get up early in order to meet "The Man's" schedule. Seems to me though, an eight hour day is an eight hour day no matter when I start, so why couldn't I start at noon- then I would still have the evening to watch the late, late shows, or whatever, and sleep in the next day with a clear conscience. Of course, I was always told that "the early bird gets the worm", and I expect that is alright if you're interested in worms and that makes you happy, but I'd rather pass, thank you.

Next to the military in authority is wife and family. After the honeymoon was over and the children started arriving, it was a constant battle between my desire to sleep-in and the little lady's need to have me out of "her" house and her hair so she could clean up. Not only that, I still had to meet "The Man's" schedule in order to support this burgeoning community which was residing in our home.

Time moves on and finally my sweet wife and I have earned the right to retire, sit back, relax, and sleep-in all we want. But now there is another problem; after all those years of rising early, I just can't seem to break the habit. Oh, I still want to sleep-in, but it is no use; I am old now and old people just seem to be incapable of sleeping in- a result of all that earlier forced training, I suppose. Besides that, there is a young grandson who sleeps over from time to time and invariably throws his empty bottle at me at five in the morning. So much for not doing mornings.

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