My trouble waking up in the a.m.
The alarm goes off and I’m thinking, “Didn’t we just do this?!” It seems to me I would like mornings better if they didn’t come so early. The alarm goes off. I get up. I do it.
It’s just not my thing. This working for a living baloney is for the birds.
Side note: Do birds eat baloney? The pigeons of Pittsburgh probably only eat jumbo.
But I digress, like I do.
I’ve been having a little trouble getting out of bed when the klaxon sounds. It doesn’t help that most alarm noises are horrifying sounds, an eerie whine, a blaring bell, Creedence Clearwater Revival or Led Zeppelin.
When we were young, back in the early Paleolithic, my brother Rick and I shared a room. Rick liked classic rock. I didn’t. One year, he got a clock/radio for Christmas. Apparently Santa Claus was unaware that I had to share the room with him, because that was one evil gift. He could only go to sleep with the music on, and I had to have silence every night before I could fall asleep.
Every night, I had to wait for a snore before I could shut off the clock/radio and get some shut-eye. Then, the snoring kept me up.
Every morning, it would go off at seven, set to WDVE.
In high school, from my freshman to senior year, I woke up to “Stairway to Heaven.” EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING.
I can’t even hear that song today without having convulsions. I had murderous thoughts about the clock/radio. I had dark fantasies about being alone with it … and a ball-peen hammer. Back then, classic rock was just called rock. It was called that because we used to bang the rocks together to make music.
Needless to say, I can’t wake up to music. I have PTSD. One “There’s a lady who’s sure … All that glitters is gold” and I’ll crack.
If you needed music to fall asleep, how was it going to wake you up?
Rick was notoriously difficult to wake up. It was like he slipped into a coma every night. I’d be the only one who would be listening to the music I despised.
I remember one particular morning when I walked over to his bed and nudged him to see if he was still alive. He woke up, punched me in the face and went back to bed.
He was late a lot. There’s only so many right hooks to the jaw you can take before you say, “Maybe you should wake up on your own.” My limit was one.
The weird thing is, Coma Boy is now an Early Riser. I hear from his wife and kids he is out of bed before sunrise these days.
I can take no credit for breaking in the wild Italian stallion.
Somewhere along the way, we switched. I could never stay up late back in high school.
Now, I can’t get out of bed early.
So far, I’ve only found one sure-fire painless way to wake up. I call it “the weekend.”
Enjoy yours.