Bad Mornings

I am not a morning person. And before we go any further, I know you must have heard this from friends and family before, that they too, were not morning people. But let me make this perfectly clear. I HATE mornings. I hate waking up before the sun rises. I hate being awake with the sound of any morning show in the background to remind me that I am up early enough to hear a morning show. I hate morning shows. I have never been a morning person. I will never be a morning person. As it is, I'm writing this at exactly 2:53 a.m. on Friday, 5/4/01.

I have nothing against morning people. Some of my best friends are morning people. But I usually only see them in mid-afternoons, when both of us are at our peak performance level (when I am hours after waking up and they are hours before going to sleep). They know not to call me anytime before noon and I know not to call them anytime after 8. It works very well. BUT...

Here's the problem I have with being a night-owl: I know there are thousands, millions of other night owl's out there. And if we did a true test and divided everyone up into groups and ended up with morning birds vs. night owls, certainly we'd be somewhere close to a 50/40% split with 10% of the population not giving a shit. Okay, so if this is the case, why, may I kindly ask, is the entire freaking world still run by morning people?

Now, I'm talking in a general sense here. I'm talking about your average city in an area where most of all businesses open in the morning and close in the evening. I understand that in New York you can order a pizza at 4 a.m. I know you can see a movie at 2:00 a.m., and possibly even go roller skating or grocery shopping in the wee hours. But, can you go to the bank and sit down with a customer service representative at 1:00 a.m. to discuss the erroneous charges on your bank statement debted by an Internet XXX-adult site? No, you cannot. Not even in New York. And certainly not in any average city.

But why can't you? Shouldn't you have the option of dropping your clothes off at the cleaners, visiting the bank, going to the mall, and stopping off at the post office for address labels at 3:00 in the morning? Shouldn't you be able to stop off for lunch somewhere around 4'ish while you wait for your dog to get done at the groomers? Who said the world had to open at 8:00 a.m. and close at 5:00? I'll tell you who.....

It was a morning person. It was some guy who whistled in the morning and called out in sing-song to everyone in the house, "Wake up, Sleepy Heads! Wake up, Sunshine!" and who greeted his family with a big smile, a huge cup of coffee, and a loving disposition. And it was people just like him who carried on the tradition for generations until it was so inbred into our DNA strands that by the time we knew what had happened and were able to fight it, it was too late. The world woke up at 8:00 a.m. and forced us to do so as well.

Those poor bastards! Those nightowls who are forced to work during the day! God, how I pity them. Let me tell you something that you may not know. These people are driving to work half-asleep. I'm not kidding. It doesn't matter how much sleep we get. I can sleep for six days in a row; wake me up in the morning and I'm gonna be exhausted. I could stay up for six days in a row; when the sun goes down my eyes are going to pop open and adrenaline is going to pour through my body no matter how sleep deprived I am. It can't be stopped. These are internal mechanisms, ya know! These mechanisms control your body, control your wake and sleep cycles. Don't screw with them. They fight back with schizo-affective symptoms and visual hallucinations.

Many have bravely fought it. They work night-shift jobs that offer them the luxury of working with all their faculties and both eyes open. They are firemen and police officers, nurses and medical support, radio DJs and air-traffic controllers, and any assortment of people from all walks of life who have found a common ground in traipsing through the darkness, living in the underworld, functioning in the soft blue glow of midnight, and being free to be who they are.

But they still can't order a pizza at 4:00 a.m. And they can't rush to the bank on their "lunch break." It's a shame. Worse than that, though, is that no matter what we nightowls accomplish as far as equal rights goes, at some point we have to go to bed. Even if the entire world crumbled to our demands and the school busses came round at 11:00 p.m., when we all got home to go to sleep, we still couldn't turn off the sun.

Home | Two Gay Gals | Lesbian Humor | Opinions | Queer Links
Queer Rings | Other Rings & Credits | Read Guestbook | Sign Guestbook