The Best Part Of Waking Up Is . . . Not This

There are few things in life that will get your blood revving quite like having your bedroom door kicked open at zero five hundred, and hearing a backlit, shadowed form standing in the doorway growl at you, “Get up.”

Now, admittedly, I have been accused by various young dudes at various times, of enjoying being the shadowed form in their doorway growling to them that it was time to get out of bed, but there are differences. For one, when I do it, it’s usually past noon. For two, when I do it, it’s much, much funnier.

When I’m on the receiving end of the whole thing. . . Well, that’s just not funny.

Let me tell you about it and you’ll see what I mean.

My wife, my beloved, my darling, known to me as She Who Must Be Surely Not Reading These, had decided to celebrate her 50th birthday by gathering a group of girlfriends and heading out to Utah, in the middle of the high desert, and going on an endless series of bicycle rides out to nowhere and then back to slightly-less-than nowhere. This, by them, is called fun. By most of the rest of us, it’s reason for being locked in a small, padded room and wearing a coat with very long sleeves.

Anyway.

A friend of hers had come in the night before they were to fly out to Utah and spent the night. She did this so they could both sleep in the same house and get an easier start when they got up at the previously suspected, but not actually experienced hour of 5 am. I honestly wasn’t sure there really was a 5 am. I knew about 5 pm, of course, but thought the opposite was merely fiction meant to scare the little boys and girls, of which I am one. Turns out. . . It’s real.

So, they were to get a ride to the airport with a local car service, (name redacted because for the most part they’ve done right by us), and the driver was to be at the house at 4:45 am. Yes, really. Gibbering horror and terror being the better part of valor, I decided to sleep in one of the young dudes’ room so I wouldn’t be anywhere near this mess.

My beloved bride, known to me as She Who Must Be Getting Her Beauty Sleep, went to bed around 11. I, however, was not so lucky. I still had things to do to get her ready for her trip. Mostly I was trying to get the electronic doo-dads and gizmos she was going to take with her into working condition, a task I didn’t know I’d taken on until about a half hour before she went to bed.

Eventually, I followed her to bed, my own, and dropped off to sleep the sleep of the truly just (or exhausted) [whatever] at around 3 am. 

The next thing I know, the door is kicked open and that shadowed form growls at me, “Get up. The driver didn’t show and you’re taking us to the airport. Now!”

I was, to put it mildly, a trifle disconcerted. Working (and I use that phrase loosely) slowly and grudgingly, I managed to grope through the dark room and locate my glasses. When I put them on, the room resolutely refused to spring into focus. I scooched to the edge of the bed, leaned over to grab my pants off the floor and promptly landed there myself. Which, now I think about it, probably woke me up nicely. Or gave me a concussion so everthing just seemed all nice and fluffy around the edges.

Managing to make headway through the constant shouts of hurry, hurry, hurry, I eventually emerged from the bedroom, blinking around like a stunned owl that’s late for the party, and managed not to fall and break anything going down the stairs.

The smartest thing I managed to do all morning was this: Instead of taking the keys and driving to the airport, I insisted that my wife, known to me as She Who Must Be In Control, But Who I Would Never Call A Control Freak (To Her Face), drive us there as I knew she felt better about things when she was mashing an accellerator to the floor, whipping the steering wheel to the left, roaring past that slowpoke of a NASCAR driver and then sliding safely back into her lane mere microseconds from splashing into an oncoming semi. It’s her beach. If you will.

Driving like that, we managed to get to the airport with plenty of time. At least, I assume we did. All I know is I woke up sitting behind the wheel and waving as my wife, known to me as She Who Must Be Leaving, and her friend walked into the departures area of the Charlotte-Douglas Airport.

I made it back home safely and then looked in the mirror. This (courtesy of some anonymous soul on the internet who posted it [or iCards seeing as how I just now noticed that]) is what I thought I saw. 

Not sure where I was supposed to have picked up the head scars, but. . . eh. It’s a pretty close approximation to my mental state at the time.

So what, you might be asking, does this have to do with being a stay-at-home dude, who’s in the house a lot while rearing three young dudes?

Well, I’ll tell you.