Morning-Hater

The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible. ~ Jean Kerr, Please Don't Eat the Dasies, 1957

I'm not a morning person. When I say "morning-hater" who pops into your head first? Well times that by two, and that's me. I hate mornings. Always have. You know how kids generally wake up about eight-ish on their own, until they hit their teen years? I never did. I'd go to bed at eight-thirty at night, and sleep in 'til ten in the morning. And I would have slept longer but my parents rule was that I couldn't sleep past ten.

Here's my typical morning routine: Hear the alarm clock, hit the snooze, hear the alarm clock, hit the snooze, hear the alarm clock, hit the snooze, etc. for about forty-five minutes. When I finally look at the clock and realize I'm late, I get up grudgingly, grab myself some cereal, some comics and go into the bathroom. I lock the door, turn the fan on, and eat in there. Gross, I know. But it's not like I'm licking the counter or anything, and the point is, when I'm in the bathroom, no one bothers me. After about a half hour or hour I feel like vocalizing and I might go out into the land of the living. AKA the non-bathroom-part-of-the-house.

Once, about three years ago, my dad decided that he was sick of me grunting in response to his "good mornings" and insisted that I respond to him in the morning. So, I did. The problem was the conversation started to get longer. Dad: "Good morning, Rochelle." Me, mumbling: "mornin'." Dad: "How are you, Rochelle." Me, mumbling: "good." And it would continue on like that for a while. This lasted for about two days until Dad realized that I was just not a morning person and that he kind of missed my usual reply, and he told me I could go back to "grunting" my replies if I wanted. So, I did. Dad: "Good morning, Rochelle." Me: "Mmmph." Dad: "How are you, Rochelle." Me: "Mmmmph." And then I'd go into the bathroom with my cereal.

The point of this story? I just had a really miserable morning. Why? Because my dear father decided to give me the evil eye, and my mother wanted me to proof a paper, and I had woken up (awakened?) 45 minutes late (as usual), and it was the morning. The result, me bursting into uncommon tears and downing 3 B6 in a hope I'd recover my day. Now, lest you think I'm a baby, imagine waking up in the morning with your father standing over your bed yelling his head off at you. Now, that's not what happened, but that's what it was like. He realized it was a misunderstanding, but I'm telling you, I was sufficiently traumatized.

Hopefully, I'll be able to avoid such mornings in the future.